Brownfields 2004 Grant Fact Sheet

Miami, FL

EPA BROWNFIELDS PROGRAM

EPA's Brownfields Program empowers states, communities, and other stakeholders in economic development to work together to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield site is real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. On January 11, 2002, the President signed into law the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act. Under the Brownfields Law, EPA provides financial assistance to eligible applicants through four competitive grant programs: assessment grants, revolving loan fund grants, cleanup grants, and job training grants. Additionally, funding support is provided to state and tribal response programs through a separate mechanism.

ASSESSMENT GRANT

$200,000 for hazardous substances
$200,000 for petroleum

EPA has selected the City of Miami for a brownfields assessment grant. Hazardous substances grant funds and petroleum grant funds will both be used to conduct an inventory of potential brownfield sites in the Little Haiti area, and conduct eight Phase I and four Phase II assessments at priority sites. Grant funds will also be used to conduct redevelopment and health/risk planning, and community outreach activities.

COMMUNITY DESCRIPTION

The City of Miami was selected to receive a brownfields assessment grant. Of the city's 362,470 residents, 29,128 live in the target neighborhood of Little Haiti, a two-mile corridor in northeast Miami that contains commercial and industrial facilities intermixed with low-income residential housing. The Little Haiti area is an impoverished, immigrant community where 38 percent of the population live below the poverty level, and 14.9 percent are unemployed or out of the labor force. This predominantly minority, Haitian-American community is 82 percent African-American, and 13 percent Hispanic. It is one of the poorest areas in the city, with minimal green space or buffers between residential and commercial/industrial land. Hundreds of sites in the area could be characterized as brownfields contaminated with hazardous substances or petroleum. A lack of resources and opportunities, deterioration of buildings, unemployment, and the perception of high crime rates all plague Little Haiti, creating instability. Grant funds will encourage sustainable, ongoing redevelopment, and address issues of environmental justice, public and environmental health, and economic development.

CONTACTS

For further information, including specific grant contacts, additional grant information, brownfields news and events, and publications and links, visit the EPA Brownfields web site at: www.epa.gov/brownfields.

EPA Region 4 Brownfields Team
404-562-8493
http://www.epa.gov/region4/waste/bf/index.htm

Grant Recipient: Miami, FL
305-416-1453

The cooperative agreement for this grant has not yet been negotiated; therefore, activities described in this fact sheet are subject to change.