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Chicago brownfield conversion gets EPA aid
 
By STAN MADDUX
Indiana Correspondent
 
 
CHICAGO, Ill. — Miniature farms are popping up at
old industrial sites in big cities across the nation,
including Chicago. Urban gardens are nothing new,
but they seem to be gaining momentum with help from
Uncle Sam.
The U.S. EPA just announced $11 million in additional
funding to clean up and redevelop contaminated
brownfield sites throughout the nation. Most of the
brownfield sites targeted for remediation are attached
to plans for new construction of homes and businesses;
however, a smaller percentage of the funds are used
to help clean up old industrial sites in urban areas to
grow fresh produce.
In Chicago, for example, $400,000 of additional funds
recently allocated will be used to make a century-old
industrial property suitable for growing vegetables and
put up an anaerobic digester to turn food scraps into a
rich soil supplement for urban gardens, said Steve
Colantino, manager of the Office of Brownfields
Assistance for the EPA in Illinois out of Springfield.
Colantino said the EPA at both the federal and state
levels become involved in urban gardens whenever
municipalities and not-for-profit groups seek financial
assistance to grow produce for their communities at
brownfield sites. The first step is to determine the past
use of the property and have it tested for contaminants,
then develop strategies for any cleanup that needs to
occur, for the ground to become safe for human contact.
Typically, Colantino said, urban gardens don’t have
direct contact with the soil already in the ground, to
eliminate any concerns about growing crops. Instead,
plastic is laid over the remediated area, then clean soil
is put on top to provide a buffer to prevent the potential
for leaching of any remaining contaminants into
the roots of the crops.
A wooden frame is then built along the edges of the
plastic to serve as a containment area for the garden,
he said. Contaminated soils are still cleaned up to
avoid contact with people walking over to work the garden
and harvest the produce.
“They want to make sure the site is environmentally
suitable for the purpose that they have in mind,” said
Colantino.
The urban garden is planned on a 30-acre site owned
by Trinity Lutheran Church at 95th Street and Cottage
Grove Avenue on Chicago’s south side. There’s already
a hydroponic research center operated by the
University of Chicago on the grounds of the church
property. The remainder of the 13 acres will be used for
health services and assisted living facilities.
Colantino said urban gardens help provide fresh produce
to areas where fruits and vegetables at the supermarket
are unaffordable, or in areas where people lack
transportation to reach grocery stores that nowadays
are becoming fewer and further away.
“Access to fresh produce is recognized as a real issue
to urban garden communities,” he explained. Other
benefits include residents being taught gardening skills
for tending their assigned plots.
The digester will go up also on the south side of
Chicago on 83rd Street. Colantino said the not-forprofit
Green ERA is working with city officials to bring
food scraps to the digester, to convert the waste into a
nutrient-rich soil supplement for urban gardens close
to home – and in more distant locations.
“They have outlets in the Midwest already lined up for
this soil stock,” said Colantino.
Remediated brownfield sites also produce returns in
other ways, such as job creation and, in most cases, revenue
from being put back on property tax rolls, he said.
According to U.S. EPA officials, investments by the agency
in brownfields have leveraged more than $21 billion in
cleanup and redevelopment funding from public and private
sources. On average, $17.79 is leveraged for every
EPA grant dollar spent on such projects, officials added.
9/12/2014