Story at a glance
- Vermont Gov. Phil Scott (R) announced Thursday the state is dedicating $25 million to redevelop old industrial sites.
- “This presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address longtime challenges and finally make good on the promise to increase economic equity from region to region and bring growth to all areas of the state,” Scott said.
- The state has already identified around 70 sites that are eligible to receive funding.
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott (R) announced Thursday the state is dedicating $25 million to redevelop old industrial sites known as “brownfields.”
Scott, along with other officials, delivered the news in Springfield at the old Jones & Lamson Machine Co. building, a 270,000-square-foot building that employed 1,500 workers, The Associated Press reported.
Funding used to revitalize brownfields, a property where redevelopment is complicated due to the presence of toxic contaminants, is historically exclusively funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The state has already identified around 70 sites that are eligible to receive funding, according to a news release from the governor’s office.
“These types of facilities once supported their local economies but because the environmental cleanup makes it too costly to redevelop, they sit vacant and have been a barrier to the community’s economic growth,” Scott said.
“This presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address longtime challenges and finally make good on the promise to increase economic equity from region to region and bring growth to all areas of the state, not just Chittenden County,” Scott concluded.
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Nearly $2.5 million in funding, including $1.2 million from the EPA, has already gone toward assessments and preliminary cleaning projects at the Springfield site, according to the AP. Now the state will give another $3.7 million toward redevelopment. Funding will go to a contractor through Mount Ascutney Regional, according to the outlet.
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Bob Flint, the executive director of the Springfield Regional Development Corp. said at the press conference Thursday that the Springfield site would be repurposed to create jobs.
“It won’t be residential, and the use will be something that is job-producing and will have a positive economic impact,” Flint said, per the AP. “It won’t be a warehouse with two people working there or minimum-wage jobs.”
The EPA estimates that there are more than 450,000 brownfields in the U.S.
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