Southeast Nebraska communities to receive EPA Brownfields grants

BEATRICE - EPA has selected the Southeast Nebraska Development District to lead a Brownfields Assessment Coalition Grant. Grant funds totaling $1.2 million will be used to conduct 30 Phase One and 15 Phase Two environmental site assessments.

Grant funds also will be used to develop 16 cleanup plans and support reuse planning and community engagement activities.

Assessment activities will focus on the City of Lincoln's West Haymarket neighborhood, the City of Crete's South Crete Recreational Corridor, the South Fairbury neighborhood in the City of Fairbury, and the City of Nebraska City's Central Business District.

Priority sites include a 1.2-acre former bulk oil facility and a three-quarter-acre abandoned grain elevator in West Haymarket, the 60-acre former municipal Airfield in Crete, a metal salvage facility and a municipal power plant in South Fairbury, a 68,000-square-foot former hospital and a former railroad depot in Nebraska City.

Coalition members include the City of Crete, the City of Fairbury, and the organization, Growing Regional Economic Activity Today (GREAT).

EPA has selected the City of Hastings for a $475,000 Brownfields Cleanup Grant that will be funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Grant funds will be used to clean up the Former Hastings Middle School located at 714 West 5th Street.

The cleanup site was a public school from 1917 to 2006 and is contaminated with inorganic contaminants. Grant funds will also support six stakeholder and community meetings, six City Council meetings, and additional community engagement activities.

Not mentioned by the EPA in the recent round of grant announcements is the vacant and condemned Dempster Manufacturing plant property, in Beatrice.  The City of Beatrice has been acquiring sections of that property with plans to demolish the site, where contaminants have been removed.

A fire that occurred at the plant earlier this year damaged the central part of the main plant building.