The Cayuga County Planning & Economic Development Department is seeking grant funding to identify brownfield sites in towns and villages throughout the county.
Kari Terwilliger is the department’s director. She told Finger Lakes News Radio that it has applied for a $160,000 grant through the Department of State that would allow the department to hire an environmental engineering consultant to conduct a Countywide Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) Assessment of known and potentially contaminated sites and buildings.
“[The purpose of the assessment is] to look at all our vacant, underutilized, and potentially contaminated sites throughout the county, mostly in our villages, to say ‘ok, are they really contaminated? Do we really have issues here? What are they and then what do we need to do as the next steps to start to get them cleaned up and remarketed and reused?"”
Because towns and villages within the county don’t have large enough areas of distress and contamination to apply on their own, Terwilliger explained that a countywide approach is necessary. The City of Auburn is being excluded from this assessment as it has already conducted its own for sites within its borders.
Once the assessment is completed, the county and municipalities with brownfield sites be eligible to apply for additional funding to revitalize the identified brownfield sites into new commercial, residential, and industrial spaces. The assessment will also provide information on the type and levels of suspected contamination at these sites.
Terwilliger expects to find out if the department will receive the funding by year’s end or early next year.
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