Work on nearly 25 percent of brownfield tracts that received EPA cleanup grants in 2009 is still unfinished, revealing “meaningful” gaps in EPA’s process, the agency’s inspector general found.
In an report released Wednesday, the inspector general said 29 of 38 former industrial or commercial sites that received a total $7.3 million in grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) had met their statutory requirements of remediation and reuse.
Of the nine sites that fell short, four had been cleaned up and awaited development. Five were either still contaminated or lacked the paperwork designating sites as fully cleaned up, the audit found.
“While most ARRA‑funded brownfield projects resulted in cleanup and reuse, a meaningful share did not, revealing gaps in the EPA’s processes,” inspector general spokesperson Kim Wheeler said in a statement.
