Houston Land Bank awards $5M to clean up East End contaminated site – Houston Public Media

A multimillion-dollar grant from the Environmental Protection Agency will be used to assess and clean up a contaminated incineration site in Houston’s Second Ward.

The Velasco Incinerator, located east of downtown Houston, operated for decades, burning the city’s municipal waste and emitting toxic chemicals into the air.

Today, the site contaminated with heavy metals, dioxins and volatile organic compounds, once owned by the city, sits vacant just south of Buffalo Bayou. The $5 million grant from the EPA will be used to clean up the property, where there is a huge pile of incinerator ash surrounded by a chain-link fence.

The Houston City Council entered into a land bank agreement and sold the property to the nonprofit Houston Land Bank in October with the goal of identifying federal grants to clean up the property.

Under an agreement with the city, the nonprofit will work with stakeholders and community members to “create a green space and reuse plan for the site that promises tangible benefits for the local community and manages the land toward new responsible ownership,” according to a home web page. for the project.

“The Velasco Incinerator cleanup project represents a significant step forward in Houston Land Bank’s efforts to transform underutilized and contaminated properties into valuable community assets,” Christa Stoneham, CEO and president of the organization, said in a statement. non-profit in a press release.

“Through this collective support, HLB can ensure that we not only meet cleaning targets and regulatory compliance, but also align project outcomes with community needs and expectations,” she said .

An additional $500,000 from the EPA will be used to assess the site and develop cleanup plans in Houston’s northeast and east neighborhoods.

The grants are part of a $300 million plan by the Biden administration to clean up polluted brownfields across the county. A brownfield is a former industrial property contaminated with pollutants, according to the EPA.

There are approximately 450,000 brownfield sites in the United States.