News Releases - 2002

Illinois EPA Receives Two USTfields Pilot Grants

Springfield, Ill. -- Illinois EPA Director Renee Cipriano has been notified that the Agency was awarded two pilot grants by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency to assess and clean up petroleum contamination from underground storage tanks, or USTs.

The grants were awarded through U.S.EPA's USTfields program, which addresses abandoned or underused sites that have underground storage tanks. The USTfields pilot grant program complements the nationwide brownfields initiative; USTfields are the most common type of brownfields site. Illinois was one of the first 10 states awarded an USTfields pilot grant at the inception of the program two years ago.

"We successfully used a previous USTfields grant to assist the city of Chicago with a former gas station and auto repair shop," said Director Cipriano. "Work had stopped because the city did not have funding to complete remediation. Thanks to assessment and cleanup activities funded by the USTfields pilot, the city has since received a No Further Remediation Letter from the Illinois EPA and can proceed with plans to redevelop the property into affordable housing."

Of the three applications Illinois submitted as part of this initiative, two of them were successful. The grants are for the communities of Freeport in Stephenson County and Waukegan in Lake County. Only 40 USTfields Pilot Grants were awarded nationwide.

The Freeport award will allow the Illinois EPA and the city to assess and clean up multiple underground storage tanks sites located near a proposed large riverwalk park. The Freeport grant was $100,000. The pilot funds will be used to conduct site investigations and to clean up the soil and groundwater. Several of these sites will be used for a recreational trail and the remaining areas will be marketed for redevelopment.

Waukegan was awarded $84,870; the city and the state will partner to assess and remediate soil and groundwater at an abandoned underground storage tank site with contamination. The city's revitalization plan outlines the redevelopment of industrial and underutilized properties in the downtown area and hundreds of acres along a lakefront. After the UST site is cleaned up, it will be added to a larger land parcel owned by the city and will be used for affordable housing.

Each pilot project was awarded up to $100,000 to promote a united approach to site assessment, environmental cleanup and redevelopment.