State receives $1M to revitalize abandoned land

The authority Dec. 14 received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help revitalize communities in the state. The authority has decided it will use the grant to establish and administer a Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund for eligible Missouri sites.

Brownfields are commercial or industrial properties that have been abandoned, often with dilapidated buildings, weed-covered open spaces and hazardous chemical contamination.

More than 300,000 brownfields are estimated to exist in the United States. Developers and lending institutions often are reluctant to purchase or develop the properties, and smaller communities, where brownfields often are located, have limited resources to deal with the issue, said Doyle Childers, director of the Department of Natural Resources, in a news release.

“Many times, in smaller communities, these sites are vacant buildings, warehouses or similar structures located on the main road or at a major intersection in the community,” he said in the release. “Smaller communities often don’t have the resources to engender the development of new businesses and commercial activities.”

About 99 percent of Missouri communities have populations below 50,000, according to the DNR, and the authority’s financial assistance will target small and rural cities.

In the last 30 years, the authority has provided financing exceeding $5 billion for environmental and energy projects. DNR will coordinate the brownfield activities with the authority.