Marion-Ralls Port Authority receives $700,000 EPA grant

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The Marion-Ralls Regional Port Authority received a $700,000 grant June 5 from the Environmental Protection Agency.

EPA Region 7 Administrator Meg McCollister presented the ceremonial check to the Marion-Ralls Regional Port Authority in northeastern Missouri as a Brownfields Assessment Coalition Grant selectee. 

This grant program is funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

McCollister was joined by Brian W. Caldwell, Marion-Ralls Regional Port Authority chairman; Cory MehaffyHannibal Regional Economic Development Council Executive director Corey Mehaffy; Marion and Ralls county commissioners; and Marion-Ralls Regional Port Authority board members.

Grant funds will be used to conduct 23 Phase I and five Phase II environmental site assessments. Grant funds also will be used to prepare four cleanup plans, one reuse plan for each priority site, and to conduct community engagement activities.

Assessment activities will focus on downtown Hannibal, the Palmyra Central Corridor, and downtown New London. 

Priority sites include a former federal building and a former bank in Hannibal, a former vehicle service station in downtown Palmyra, and a former sports fabric and utility factory in New London. 

Non-lead coalition members include Marion County, Ralls County and the North East Community Action Corporation, a local community-based nonprofit organization.

These investments are part of President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda to grow the American economy from the bottom up and middle-out – from rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, to driving over $470 billion in private-sector manufacturing and clean-energy investments in the United States. 

These investments will also create a manufacturing and innovation boom powered by good-paying jobs that don’t require a four-year degree, build a clean-energy economy that will combat climate change and make our communities more resilient.

“Coalition grants, such as these, are so important to our communities,” McCollister said. “Through working together, smaller communities may qualify for EPA grants together, making a large-scale impact through planning activities and developing site-specific cleanup plans, all while keeping the community as a whole engaged in the process.”

“The Marion-Ralls Regional Port Authority is extremely pleased to be selected for an EPA Brownfields Assessment Coalition Grant,” Mehaffy said. “These funds will allow the Port to build on its Brownfields program, providing the necessary environmental assessments and planning work needed for resilient redevelopment for the region.”

EPA has selected these organizations to receive funding to address and support the reuse of Brownfield sites. EPA anticipates making all the recently announced awards, once all legal and administrative requirements are satisfied.

EPA’s Brownfields Program began in 1995 and has provided nearly $2.37 billion in Brownfields Grants to assess and clean up contaminated properties and return blighted properties to productive reuse. EPA’s investments in addressing Brownfield sites have leveraged over $36 billion in cleanup and redevelopment. 

Over the years, the relatively small investment of federal funding has leveraged nearly 260,000 jobs from both public and private sources. 

Communities that previously received Brownfields Grants used these resources to fund assessments and cleanups of brownfields, and successfully leveraged an average of 10.6 jobs per $100,000 of EPA Brownfield Grant funds spent and $19.78 for every dollar.