"Nearly 200 communities across the United States have been awarded new federal grants to clean up old contaminated industrial sites and transform them into new, job-creating developments. In Augusta, Maine, an old paper mill that operated for more than a century will be turned into a new hotel and conference center. In Chicago, soil and ground water polluted with dry-cleaning solvents will be cleaned up to make room for a new library in a poor neighborhood. On an Indian reservation in Arizona, a contaminated tanning factory will be turned into a new industrial park, perhaps one that makes solar panels. All of these brownfields projects will be funded in part by EPA's $76 million in 2011 grants, which were announced Monday. "

Marla Cone reports for Environmental Health News June 7, 2011. [2]