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EPA Grant to Help Huntington Cleanup Large Brownfield

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The city of Huntington announced Monday they’ve received a grant of $200,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The grant will help cleanup old industrial sites in the Highlawn area of Huntington and will help facilitate a new advanced polymer center. Huntington is one of 20 communities nationwide this year to receive a grant under the EPA’s Brownfields Area-Wide Planning program.

"This is step-one and only the first step of many, the momentum is here and if you look at the level of partnerships we have and assuring especially with private investment that we have the opportunity to move forward. The foundation only works if it's laid properly and laid square." – Huntington Mayor Steve Williams

Huntington hopes that using the grant they can reenergize a former manufacturing area  that sits along the Ohio River between Marshall’s campus and the Highlawn neighborhood.

"In a brownfield you have an opportunity that’s not available in other areas because all of the infrastructure is already in place, the electric is there and the water and sewer and the transportation is already in place and the problem is it has a history that needs to be cleaned up so it can be repurposed." – Huntington Mayor Steve Williams

And the city thinks the EPA grant will be the beginning of getting the space cleaned up.