USA: Schumer Supports Jamestown Cleanup Project

U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to award the City of Jamestown with a $200,000 Assessment Pilot Grant, which will allow the City to assess the Chadakoin West and Chadakoin Riverfront Brownfield sites for redevelopment.

Specifically, the grant would allow the City of Jamestown to inventory, characterize, assess and conduct planning and community involvement related to these sites and their potential reuses. In his letter to the EPA, Schumer said that the Chadakoin West and Chadakoin Riverfront are prime for development, particularly given that they are adjacent to the train station.

“Investing in the cleanup of the Chadakoin West and Chadakoin Riverfront Brownfields is smart in the short-term for the health of Jamestown residents, and for the long-term revitalization of these sites adjacent to the train station,” said Schumer. “I am urging the EPA to award the City of Jamestown with this $200,000 grant to get the planning for cleanup and redevelopment in motion, which will help improve public health and set the sites on track for speedy redevelopment.”

“The resources the Brownfield Assessment Grant Program award brings to bear, affords a tangible and significant opportunity to provide the City of Jamestown leverage for private developers as an important economic development tool by eliminating the costly expense of Phase 1 and Phase 2 Environmental Site Assessments,” said Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi. “Ensuring the ability to perform these assessments communitywide through this grant to the City of Jamestown fosters the concept of Smart Growth, and is the vital first step leading to remediation, removing barriers to redevelopment, and ultimately leads to a better quality of life and health outcomes for the citizens that reside in adjoining neighborhoods.”

The City of Jamestown, New York is seeking funding to the 2014 Brownfield Assessment Grant Program being offered through the EPA. The funding will be utilized to assess priority brownfield sites as identified through Jamestown’s New York State Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) Program and other brownfield projects.

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Press Release, January 8, 2014