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Brownfields
1998 Assessment
Pilot
Fact Sheet
Waukegan, IL
EPA Brownfields Initiative
EPA's Brownfields Program empowers states, communities, and other stakeholders to work together to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield site is real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. On January 11, 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act. Under the Brownfields Law, EPA provides financial assistance to eligible applicants through four competitive grant programs: assessment grants, revolving loan fund grants, cleanup grants, and job training grants. Additionally, funding support is provided to state and tribal response programs through a separate mechanism.
Pilot Snapshot
Date of Announcement: Sep 1998
Amount: $200,000
Profile: The Pilot targets six brownfields properties along the proposed Madison Street Corridor that will link the city's downtown and waterfront areas.
Background
EPA selected the City of Waukegan for a Brownfields Pilot. Waukegan (population 74,166) is located 39 miles north of Chicago along the shore of Lake Michigan. The city's deep-water harbor provides shipping access to the St. Lawrence Seaway for a number of large corporations, and is the base for a vibrant sportfishing and sailing industry.
Like many other older industrial port communities, Waukegan's downtown and waterfront areas are separated by a number of abandoned and underused properties. These brownfields have negatively impacted redevelopment efforts and contributed to the increase in deteriorating neighborhoods and low-income households. The unemployment rate is 9.5 percent; the minority population rate is 46 percent; and 58 percent of the households have low to extremely low incomes. Brownfields have also been linked to threats to human health, fish and wildlife, and soil and water resources. These environmental problems have made potential developers hesitant to invest in brownfields properties.
The Pilot will target six brownfields sites along Madison Street. Redeveloping Madison Street is a key component of the city's larger Waukegan Downtown and Waterfront Revitalization Project, which incorporates 20 downtown blocks and hundreds of lakefront acres. Redeveloping brownfields is essential to bridging the divide between downtown and the waterfront and creating economic opportunities for Waukegan.
Objectives
Waukegan's objective is to revitalize its downtown and lakefront areas by creating a new tax base and new jobs, and by improving public health and safety. This plan will be achieved by linking downtown and the waterfront via an intermodal corridor along Madison Street. Pilot funding will be used to compile brownfields property information (ownership, history of environmental contamination, assessments performed) into a database. This information will then be used to determine which properties along Madison Street should be targeted for further environmental investigation and cleanup. A final objective of the Pilot is to facilitate partnerships among interested stakeholders.
Activities
The Pilot has:
- Identified six sites to be targeted for assessment, cleanup, and redevelopment; and
- Completed Phase I assessments at five sites.
- Creating a geographic information system (GIS) database outlining property ownership and environmental assessment status;
- Performing Phase II environmental assessments and identifying cleanup strategies for two key properties;
- Conducting community outreach activities to inform the public about the Pilot's activities; and
- Facilitating the formation of partnerships with property owners, developers, public and private financing sources, and community representatives to develop community-generated cleanup and redevelopment plans.
Contacts
For further information, including specific grant contacts, additional grant information, brownfields news and events, and publications and links, visit the EPA Brownfields Web site (http://www.epa.gov/brownfields).
EPA Region 5 Brownfields Team
(312) 886-7576
EPA Region 5 Brownfields Web site
(http://www.epa.gov/R5Brownfields)
Grant Recipient: Waukegan, City of, IL
(847) 625-6879
The information presented in this fact sheet comes from the grant proposal; EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. The cooperative agreement for the grant has not yet been negotiated. Therefore, activities described in this fact sheet are subject to change.