The Detroit Wayne County Port Authority secured $800,000 in funding from the United States Environmental Protection Agency for brownfield assessments that have been used to aid numerous Detroit and Wayne County developments. This past Monday, June 25, DWCPA toured representatives of EPA Region 5 around the various sites in order to showcase the successes the grant has enabled.
John Kerr, DWCPA's director of economic development and grants management, says an important component of the tour was demonstrating to the EPA the level of economic development that their grant has leveraged. By working with Wayne County and Detroit's Department of Environmental Affairs, projects have been assisted by multiple levels of government.
One example is an DWCPA assessment of a Midtown Detroit site that will ultimately be developed into 35 units of affordable housing. Now, the city of Detroit is performing the necessary remediation. Kerr explains, "We're both putting different kinds of money into the project."
Kerr says it is essential for his agency to communicate to the EPA that their money is being fully utilized in order to receive more funding. Additionally, the 2008 national conference on brownfields will be held in Detroit, so he anticipates lots of interest in local remediation stories.
Read more about the Detroit projects that DWCPA has helped get off the ground in this Model D article.
Source: John Kerr, DWCPA
Writer: Kelli B. Kavanaugh
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