Cities get cleanup funding

The corridor, which runs from Peabody Square to downtown Salem, has a history of industrial and commercial uses that have led to some contamination, said Martin Pillsbury, manager of environmental planning at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. The goal, he said, is to identify the contaminants and eventually clean up the sites for potential redevelopment, which would complement the city's ongoing $20 million flood mitigation project.

"They may have some prime real estate once [the sites] are cleaned up," Pillsbury said.

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council received the $1 million grant last week from the US Environmental Protection Agency, to be used for the assessments of potentially contaminated sites along the river in Peabody and Salem. With funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the EPA awarded an estimated $111.9 million nationwide, including $7.1 million to Massachusetts communities, to help with the assessment and cleanup of so-called brownfield sites, contaminated by hazardous chemicals or pollutants.

Other local recipients included the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission, which received $400,000 in Recovery Act funds and $1 million in EPA brownfields funds, and the city of Lowell, awarded $400,000 in Recovery Act funds.

In Peabody, a major part of the flood mitigation plan includes widening the North River from 18 feet to 38 feet.

"But in the process of doing that, they're discovering some of the areas along that corridor have some contamination from the uses that had been in that area," Pillsbury said. "Peabody had some tanneries. They didn't have the large-scale mills that Lawrence and Lowell had, because Lawrence and Lowell were right along a major river, but there were some significant uses."

Because the corridor extends into Salem, and in order to have a better chance at the funds, Peabody officials asked Salem officials to join them in the application process through the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, said Lynn Duncan, Salem's planning director.

The North River area "is a series of old, industrial buildings - a lot of unrealized potential," Duncan said. "The big picture, really, is we're cooperating with Peabody on their flood mitigation project. In order for them to proceed with it, they really needed this funding to do environmental assessment because a lot of [the sites] are brownfields."

Having already helped some of the 15 communities it serves identify brownfield properties, the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission hopes to continue to do that with the $400,000 grant, said Dennis A. DiZoglio, executive director.

"We're hoping that if we take the unknown of hazardous materials out of the mix, that it will improve the ability of developers to consider them," DiZoglio said. "It's a double whammy on the site when you have a bad economy and the unknown hazardous material. If we eliminate one of the unknowns, maybe they will be developed."

The $1 million would be tied into a revolving low-interest loan fund that would be offered to communities or companies interested in redeveloping a brownfield site in any of the Planning Commission's 15 communities, which stretch from Andover to Salisbury, DiZoglio said. The money would be paid back to the Planning Commission to be reused for other cleanup projects, he said. For the most part, contaminants found in previous cleanup projects overseen by the Planning Commission include oil or petroleum products, metals, asbestos, or ground-water issues, DiZoglio said.

In Lowell, which has been at the forefront of cleaning and redeveloping brownfield sites since the mid 1990s, most notably the Tsongas Arena and the Lowell Spinners' LeLacheur Park land, the $400,000 grant will advance projects in its urban renewal district, specifically in The Acre and the Jackson/Appleton/Middlesex (JAM) areas, said Adam Baacke, Lowell's assistant city manager and planning and development director.

Contaminant assessment "can enlighten people that it's not as dirty as originally thought, but it also makes an unknown known," Baacke said.

The city's 20-year redevelopment plans for The Acre and JAM areas involve residential and commercial uses, Baacke said. The Acre is in year nine of its plan, while JAM is in year eight.

The most prominent brownfields cleanup and redevelopment project in The Acre so far has been the Stoklosa Middle School, built on land once used by a gas company, Baacke said. In the JAM area it's the Edward Early Jr. parking garage, built on a property that was previously a residential boarding house for one of the mills, then an industrial company, an auto dealership, and a parking lot. The JAM area has caught the eye of the state, which is planning to construct a new trial court there on land that has seen industrial, railroad, and automotive uses, Baacke said.

"One of the attractions of the funding is that it makes it a nonissue for the developer," he said.

Katheleen Conti can be reached at kconti@globe.com