EPA Brownfields Grant Recipients in South Carolina
 |
"Brownfields are real property, where the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse has been
complicated by the presence or potential presence of a pollutant." |
DHEC receives funding from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conduct Targeted Brownfields Assessments (TBAs). The Department has guidance on assist with determining if a site would qualify to have a TBA performed on it. (Click here to see guidance) We are awarded approximately $50,000 per site to do assessment work to determine if there is pollution on the property. If you are aware of a property you would like for us to consider performing an assessment on, please contact Jonathan McInnis at (803) 896-4061.
Parties within South Carolina have been provided financial assistance through four competitive grants sponsored by the USEPA's Brownfields Program. As well as being funded one or several of these four (4) grants (Assessment grant, Brownfield Cleanup Revolving Loan Fund (BCRLF) grant, Cleanup grant, and Job-Training grant), many of them have been recipients of other grant monies spurred on by the EPA's Brownfields program. The following are the parties:
- Towns of Cowpens (Assessment grant [completed])
- City of Charleston (Assessment grant [completed], Assessment supplemental funding; Jobs training grant; BCRLF grant; Petroleum assessment grant [new])
- City of Anderson (Assessment grant, Underground Storage Tank (UST) fields grant)
- City of Columbia (Assessment grant [Completed], BCRLF grant)
- City of Greenville (Jobs training grant, UST fields grant)
- Town of Ware Shoals (Assessment grant [completed])
- Spartanburg County (Superfund redevelopment pilot; Environmental Justice grant; Green building funding)
- Catawba Council of Governments
- City of Laurens
- City of Florence
- City of Rock Hill (EJ)
- City of Aiken (new) (hazardous substance assessment grant)
- ReGenesis, Inc. (Hazardous waste cleanup grant [new], Petroleum cleanup grant [new])
- South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, Underground Storage Tank Program (Petroleum assessment grant)
Spartanburg County Brownfield Property
In June 2004, 5 recipients within SC were awarded grant money from the EPA. The recipients are the City of Aiken for a hazardous substance assessment grant ($200,000), the Underground Storage Tank Program within DHEC for a petroleum assessment grant ($25,000), the City of Charleston for a petroleum assessment grant ($200,000), and ReGenesis, Inc., (a non-profit organization in Spartanburg, SC) was the recipient of 2 cleanup grants ($100,000 each) for a hazardous substance and a petroleum site.
In 2003, the Council of Neighborhoods (RHCON) was awarded the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice Revitalization grant by the EPA. RHCON, which represents 18 neighborhood associations in the City of Rock Hill, is working with citizens in the Arcade/Westside Area to address their environmental justice concerns. The grant will provide lessons regarding the development of productive local neighborhood-municipal government partnerships. The achievement of this will be critical in order to address these resident's environmental justice concerns. Spartanburg County was the first, and only other municipality, to receive one of the grants in SC. They received theirs in 2000. They have been working towards redeveloping the Arkwright/Forest Park Communities with assistance from a non-profit organization called, ReGenesis.
Arcade Mill Site
Rock Hill, SC
On June 20, 2003, the United States Environmental Protection Agency announced that both the City of Florence and the City of Rock Hill received a brownfields assessment grant in the amount of $200,000. The City of Florence is using grant funds to perform environmental site assessments on brownfields in seven targeted areas of the City, including a 20-acre site that inhibits economic growth in a nearby low-income, predominately minority neighborhood. Grant funds also will be used for community outreach activities, cleanup planning, and health monitoring. The City of Rock Hill intends to use the grant fund to conduct four Phase II assessments of former textile mills in the Arcade-Westside neighborhood area. Grant funds also will be used to conduct community outreach activities and redevelopment planning for three of the four sites to be assessed.
Besides DHEC, the City of Columbia and the City of Charleston each have their own Brownfields Cleanup Revolving Loan Fund.
For more information please contact the Bureau of Land & Waste Management at (803) 896-4000.