Brownfield Assessment Grant

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – City of Zanesville, Muskingum County, and the Zanesville – Muskingum County Port Authority formed together a Brownfield Coalition to analyze and create an inventory of sites throughout the county that need tested.

Now the coalition has an E.P.A. Brownfield Assessment Grant. According to Redevelopment Administrator Steve Holowicki Brownfield is a term used for a building and site that had been abandoned. Typically these are old industrial or commercial sites that could possibly be polluted.

“So it’s a $550,000 Brownfield Assessment Grant $400,000 of that is for environmental pollutants and the other $150,000 is strictly for petroleum sites, so former gas stations,” Holowicki said. “Anything where petroleum contaminants is suspected to have existed.”

Phase one will be an Environmental Site Assessment which is where the coalition members will track down which sites need to be tested. Holowicki said they look at each sites history on who owned it, what operated on that property, how long ago, and whether it’s now vacant and abandoned or still owned.

“Is it tax delinquent? That generally tells us, a site with a huge tax note on it usually means the owner has left the building and they’re long gone,” Holowicki said. “So that’s left up to the government entities as to what the next steps of that process are.”

After phase one is done and they have a good probability that a site is contaminated they’ll then proceed with phase two.

“They actually do soil samples and test for Volatile Organic Compounds and put place ground water monitoring wells, things of that nature,” Holowicki said. “To actually test the soil and look for contaminants and then the engineering firm we partner with will make that assessment.”

The grant was awarded to the coalition back in June 2016. After obtaining the grant engineering firms started bidding and the Brownfield Coalition selected Soil & Materials Engineers also known as S.M.E. based from Cincinnati Ohio.

The E.P.A. Brownfield Assessment Grant will take about three years to complete.