The Indiana Department of Environmental Management said Thursday it would help distribute about $10 million in loans and grants to clean up 100 brownfields–abandoned industrial and commercial sites.
Economic growth does not come without a price, observed IDEM Commissioner John Hamilton in announcing the three-year program.
“In the past, we have had a lot of economic growth that has provided economic problems. Brownfields need attention and they need leadership,” he said.
Hamilton also said IDEM is advising the buyers and sellers of brownfields that if they clean them up, they won’t be held liable for environmental problems left behind by previous owners.
Hamilton announced the program at the site of the abandoned Evansville Plating Works. After the plant was shut in 1990, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spent two years and more than $600,000 cleaning up the site.
So far, the state has helped 17 communities return about 25 brownfields to productive use.
