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Possibly Tainted Sites to Be Tested: Officials Hope Clearing Questions on Downtown Areas Spurs Development

Posted on: Tuesday, 16 May 2006, 12:02 CDT

By Joe Estrella, The Idaho Statesman, Boise

May 16--Capital City Development Corp. will study select Downtown properties to determine whether they harbor potentially hazardous substances that would prevent their redevelopment, an agency official said Monday.

The corporation, Boise's urban-renewal agency, will use a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help spur development.

CCDC will analyze Downtown sites that may have been contaminated by a previous property owner, said James Werntz, director of the EPA Idaho operations office.

Executive Director Phil Kushlan said the CCDC will perform background checks on unnamed properties that once housed businesses known to have used potentially hazardous materials.

The EPA calls such sites brownfields. They either contain, or are thought to contain, contaminants, but not in sufficient quantities to warrant being designated as EPA Superfund sites.

If a property is found to be contaminated, a potential developer can then apply for a low- or no-interest loan for the cleanup of the property, said Aaron Scheff, a brownfield specialist with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.

If the property is not contaminated, then a "perception" that may be preventing its development will have been removed, Kushlan said.

EPA also awarded $200,000 to cover about half of the cost of cleaning up the historic Bayhorse mining district in Custer County.

The cleanup of the mine and ghost town -- about 575 acres in all -- will cost about $400,000, said Ernest Lombard, a member of the Idaho Parks and Recreation Board.

The Idaho Department of Lands has agreed to contribute $125,000. State parks officials plan to ask the Legislature to approve the remaining money, Lombard said.

Gold, silver and copper and zinc were produced beginning in the late 1870s. Once the cleanup is completed, the mining district will become part of the Land of the Yankee Fork historical district, Lombard said.

The EPA grants are part of $69.9 million that has been awarded nationally by the EPA Brownfields Redevelopment Program.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Idaho Statesman, Boise

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Source: The Idaho Statesman, Boise

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