The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced this week a total of $19.7 million in new grants and investments will be issued to 12 communities and governmental organizations in Maine to pay for the cleanup and development of Brownfields properties throughout the state.

The EPA’s Brownfields program sets funding aside to help pay to clean up hazardous substances, pollution or contaminants that would otherwise make it difficult to develop a piece of property. 

Portland, according to the EPA, will receive $3 million in funding for such cleanups. Mary Davis, the city’s interim director of housing and economic development, said it was not clear where the city would be using the new funding yet, but Portland has used Brownfields money to help other development projects citywide in the past.

For example, Davis said, Brownfields money contributed to the cleanup necessary at the property on Thompson’s Point before the Children’s Museum and Theater could be relocated there. She also noted Brownfields money has helped pave the way for new housing projects, such as the Portland Housing Authority’s Solterra Apartments, which opened last fall at 58 Boyd St. 

Right now, she said, work related to at least two new projects in the city has already been paid for in part by Brownfields money: Another housing project currently in progress by the Portland Housing Authority on Front Street, and a new project about to begin to renovate the home of Portland Housing’s Youth and Family Outreach program on Cumberland Avenue.

Davis said that it was possible that the new Brownfields money would be appropriated to more affordable housing projects given the demand for affordable housing in the city.

“Their budgets are always tight,” she said, adding that funding for affordable housing “ensures that we’re getting the housing that we need.”

Without the assistance of Brownfields funding, Davis said, such projects would require paying for expensive cleanup of materials such as lead paint and asbestos when the projects involve renovating old buildings.

“This money could be used to help mitigate those hazards,” she said.

The EPA’s statement indicated that, in addition to Portland, the communities of Bath, Gardiner, South Portland, Waterville, Gray and Rockland will each get $500,000. 

The EPA is also awarding $1 million to the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments, $3.9 million to the Greater Portland Council of Governments, $1 million to the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments, and $3.9 million to the Southern Maine Planning and Development Commission. 

On the state level, the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development will receive $3.9 million.

“Thanks to funding from Congress and the Biden Administration in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, EPA is making a historic investment to help communities in Maine perform Brownfields assessments and cleanups,” said EPA New England Regional Administrator David W. Cash. “These projects will jump start economic redevelopment and job creation, and will do so in many neighborhoods that have been underserved and are ready to turn environmental risks into economic assets.”

“As chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees funding for the EPA, I’m thrilled to bring this funding back to Maine's towns and underserved areas which are working to clean up and repurpose contaminated sites,” Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) stated in announcing the funding.