News Releases - 2002

Illinois EPA Announces Brownfields Redevelopment Grant For Village Of Posen

Springfield, Ill. -- Illinois EPA Director Renee Cipriano announced that the Village of Posen has been awarded a Brownfields Redevelopment Grant by the Agency.

Posen will receive $120,000 in grant funds to conduct Phase I and II environmental site assessments, develop remedial objectives and remedial action plans on former retail and manufacturing sites in the village. The potential of both petroleum contamination and hazardous waste remains on the properties.

Once they receive a No Further Remediation letters through the Illinois EPA's Site Remediation Program, the Village plans to make the properties available for development. Posen expects to ultimately attract private investment to the two properties and return the currently unused parcels to active commercial use.

Posen has recently become a member of the South Suburban Chicago Brownfields Coalition. The SSCBC is an alliance of five municipalities, all members of the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, that was established to work together to implement a two-year $200,000 Brownfields Assessment Pilot Grant received from the USEPA.

"Brownfields grants help communities with the funding they need to evaluate the environmental impact of the past uses of property and enables them to form a plan to rehabilitate the site for redevelopment," said Director Cipriano.

Governor George Ryan noted that 62 Illinois communities have now been awarded grants under the program, which began July 1, 1998. "Illinois communities have received over $5.6 million, to date, for environmental assessments of brownfields sites. This assistance is often the catalyst necessary to bring sites that have been community eyesores or potential hazards back to productive use."

The grants are awarded to Illinois municipalities for environmental assessments of abandoned or underutilized properties in preparation for brownfields cleanup and redevelopment.