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EPA Awards More Funds To Clean Up Former Uniroyal Tire Factory

City of Chicopee

As Congress considers whether to reauthorize funds for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfields Program, a top agency official this week highlighted the latest funding awards in western Massachusetts.

The acting EPA regional administrator for New England, Deb Szaro, said she was thrilled that $2.4 million was recently approved to assess and clean up brownfields sites in western Massachusetts and in the city of Worcester.

" That means a lot to these blighted industrial properties that have been sitting unused and off the taxpayer rolls and without economic benefit for the towns,"  Szaro said.

Communities and regional planning agencies compete for the coveted EPA grants and just 17 were awarded across Massachusetts this year.

In western Massachusetts grants were awarded to Chicopee, North Adams, Williamstown, Great Barrington, the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, and the Belchertown Economic Development and Industrial Corporation.

In deciding who gets the grants, the EPA looks for opportunities to clean up contaminated sites that will spark private investments, and create jobs, according to Szaro.

Chicopee has been particularly adept at securing funds from the EPA’s brownfields program. With the latest award of $900,000, the city has received a total of $4 million since 2009.

"The fact the city of Chicopee has repeatedly gotten grants is unheard of, it is amazing," said Szaro.

The money has gone toward a massive project to clean up two abandoned industrial sites: the former Uniroyal tire factory and Facemate textile mill that combined had almost two dozen buildings on roughly 72 acres along the Chicopee River.  Before the buildings can be razed, hazardous materials including asbestos and PCBs must be removed.

The latest EPA grants will help pay to clean up three of the 10 buildings that still stand on the Uniroyal site.

Mayor Richard Kos estimated it will take another $10 million and perhaps another 10 years to complete the cleanup project.

" Getting these grants each year allowed us to get more and more of the property cleaned and ready for use," said Kos.

The Facemate property has been cleaned up. The RiverMills Senior Center is located on part of it.

Developer David Spada has struck a deal with the city to buy a 4-acre parcel just east of the senior center to build a 92-unit assisted living center.   He said the $23 million project would not be economically feasible if public funds had not first been used to clean up the contaminated site and make it ready for development.

" The spark needs to be lit," he said.  " There is no need to go out to the greenfields and clear cut trees and disturb open land when we have these possible ( brownfields) sites to redevelop."

Although President Trump has proposed to slash the EPA’s budget by 31 percent, he  would continue the brownfields program, according to an EPA press release.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.
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