EPA announces $300m funding to clean up US former industrial sites

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $300m in new funding to clean up and redevelop 200 industrial sites across the country.

The EPA has worked with local partners to clean up and redevelop thousands of such brownfields over the past 30 years.

But under a $1.5bn boost from the BIL, the EPA said it had increased spending on the program fourfold.

The EPA estimates there are at least 450,000 brownfields across the country, and that more than 149 million Americans live within three miles of one of these sites.

The EPA defines a brownfield as any site with documented or suspected environmental contamination that hinders redevelopment. They can range from properties as small as an old abandoned gas station to gigantic shuttered factories.

The EPA first launched its brownfields program in the 1990s with just $2m in pilot funding, Garczynski said.

Across the US, communities of color are most burdened by brownfields.