The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded $1 million in grant funding to support environmental assessment, cleanup, and redevelopment in Spanish Fork and Murray.
Each city is receiving $500,000 as part of the EPA’s Brownfields Multipurpose, Assessment, and Cleanup Grant Programs.
Spanish Fork is assessing two priority properties, the Express Way Landfill and the Foundry, which have elevated concentrations of contaminants in the soil and groundwater.
The funding will also help the city redevelop these underutilized industrial areas, according to Mayor Mike Mendenhall, with development opportunities including affordable commercial spaces.
The city of Murray is assessing contamination at two properties within the Murray Central Business District.
One is the Creek Pocket Park, a vacant residential parcel near historic Murray smelters and a vital connection between the east and west sides of the city. Funding will allow Murray to assess contaminants on the property like lead, asbestos, arsenic, cadmium, and other heavy metals.
The funding is also going to Soccer Locker, an approximately three-acre lot along Little Cottonwood Creek. Previous investigations have found high levels of arsenic and other metals at the location, presumed to be slag and mine waste.
There are plans to develop the area into commercial buildings and mixed-use affordable housing.
Since its inception in 1995, the EPA’s Brownfields Program has provided nearly $2.7 billion in grants to assess and clean up contaminated properties and return those areas to productive reuse.