Acuri Announces $200K Grant For Geneva Clean Up

U.S. Representative Michael A. Arcuri (D-Utica) announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded the City of Geneva a grant totaling $200,000 to clean up contamination at a former gas station and auto repair center at 305 Main Street as part of the EPA’s brownfields program.”It is an honor to announce this brownfield grant for the City of Geneva to help turn a contaminated and unproductive piece of land into a new place for economic development and growth,” Arcuri said. “By turning a polluted property that has for too long lain dormant into revitalized land for development and expansion, the EPA brownfields program will breathe new life and economic opportunity into downtown Geneva.”Petroleum grant funds will be used to clean up the site of an abandoned service station and auto repair center at 305 Main St., Geneva. Petroleum from the service center had contaminated the soil and groundwater at the site. Grant funds will also be used to install a groundwater monitoring well to measure the effectiveness of the soil cleanup. The clean up site is located next to a historic opera house, and clean up of the area will bring new opportunities to the business district, beautify the city, and complement events at the opera house. Cleanup and redevelopment of the former service station would also serve to enhance surrounding property values. Today, the EPA announced a total of $1.5 million in brownfields grants to communities in New York. To date, EPA has awarded more than $21.3 million to communities in New York- 55 assessment projects, 14 cleanup programs, 5 revolving loans and 7 job training grants. The EPA’s brownfields assistance program has leveraged more than $9.6 billion in cleanup and redevelopment – creating more than 43,029 jobs and resulting in the assessment of more than 10,504 properties and the cleanup of 180 properties.The brownfields grant program provides funding to local communities to clean up industrial and commercial contamination, making way for economic development, revitalization and expansion – turning problem properties into community assets. The brownfields program encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites.