BLOOMFIELD -- The Greene County Commissioners approved a joint venture with four other counties and the Southern Indiana Development Commission to take part in a proposed Brownfields Assessment Coalition.
Joining Greene County in the coalition to obtain a matching funds grant from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency are Knox, Martin, Daviess and Lawrence Counties. The SIDC will act as the lead partner in the coalition and will oversee several functions related to obtaining and eventually administering the grant.
"It basically states the relationship as it will be through the five counties and how the five counties as well as the SIDC, will work together, this will be a joint venture," SIDC representative Rhonda Rumble said.
A brownfield is defined by the EPA as a property the expansion, redevelopment or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant.
If awarded, the grant will allow the five counties to pool their efforts in order to assess, safely clean-up and reuse areas designated as brownfields. The Brownfield Assessment Grants provide funding for brownfield inventories, planning, environmental assessments and community outreach.
According to the coalition agreement, a site selection process will be established that will ensure that a minimum of five sites -- one per county involved in the agreement -- are assessed over the life of the cooperative agreement with an anticipated 23 Phase I sites, 15 Phase II sites and eight clean-up site plans.
The coalition agreement, which has to be approved by all parties involved before it becomes active, also establishes an 11-member commission that will ultimately determine how the grant funds would actually be spent.
"If you are awarded these funds there would have to be a priority set as to how you select what county, what place, what particular brownfields you would select," Commissioners Attorney Marilyn Hartman said. "That way it allows for everyone who would have a brownfields site and have that assessed and then there would be decisions made on that."