By Daisy Vargas
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) has just announced a $45,000 Brownfields grant to Angel’s Corner, Inc. to remove asbestos and lead-based paint from the former Canyon Trading Post site in Coconino County.
The 1.45-acre area was in need of environmental cleanup to prepare the area for redevelopment. The former Canyon Trading Post site is home to five combined structures, which had been unoccupied for years.
Among those structures are the brownfields properties, with potential for redevelopment that had been delayed from known and perceived environmental contamination.
The brownfields grant to Angel’s Corner, Inc. is not the first project funded from the grant program. Since 2003, ADEQ’s brownfields grants have funded more than 50 environmental assessments and cleanups with funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“Recovering blighted properties by administering non-competitive grants through ADEQ’s brownfields program is just one way we accomplish environmentally responsible economic growth in our state,” said Henry Darwin, director of the ADEQ.
The project will be overseen by the ADEQ’s Voluntary Remediation Program. The VRP will allow prospective and current property owners to cooperate with the ADEQ to clean up the contaminated site and take the next steps necessary to prepare the property for redevelopment.
For more information regarding brownfields grants, please azdeq.gov/brownfields
Daisy Vargas is a writer with a passion for all things green. In the fall, she will resume her attendance at Smith College.
