(KINGSFORD, MI.)– Michigan Department of Environmental Quality brownfield redevelopment grant awarded to the City of Kingsford. Monies will be used to investigate environmental contamination at the Lodal Inc. property on Breitung Avenue. The investigation must be conducted before the underutilized manufacturing plant can be sold to a new owner who will increase production and create new jobs. The brownfield grant will help the city assess the current levels of environmental contamination at the site, which was previously owned by Ford Motor Company and Kingsford Chemical Company. Once the environmental conditions are known, Jastan, LLC plans to purchase the property from Lodal, Inc., the present owner. Jastan will continue to manufacture waste collection trucks and plans to expand into other products. Jastan officials expect to create more than 20-new jobs in the first two years after its purchase. Brownfield redevelopment grants and loans are awarded by the MDEQ to local governments for environmental activities on brownfield properties where redevelopment is proposed. Brownfields are vacant or abandoned properties with known or suspected environmental contamination. The MDEQ’s grants and loans have resulted in over $4 billion in private investment and nearly 29,000 new jobs over the life of the Brownfield Redevelopment Program. For each dollar invested in environmental cleanup by the MDEQ, an average of $23 is invested in the state’s economy, officials noted. When brownfields are redeveloped, property values increase both on the cleaned-up site and on other nearby properties, creating new tax revenues for communities, they added. More information at www.michigan.gov/deqbrownfields.
(Aaron Harper,WJNR,WOBE,WHTO)
aaronharper22@gmail.com