NORTH ATTLEBORO — A $1 million federal grant will help clean up the sites of two former jewelry companies.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that the grant is part of an $8.1 million investment in Massachusetts made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to clean up contaminated “brownfield” sites and redevelop them for productive use.
Locally, the grant means a new revolving loan fund targeting the long-vacant Webster Mill on Broadway and another former jewelry maker on Robinson Avenue in Attleboro Falls, near the Dyer-Lake Funeral Home, Lyle Pirnie, the town’s economic developmental director, said Monday.
“Volatile organic compounds need to be hauled away and then those properties can be razed and repurposed,” Pirnie said.
The grant will provide low-interest loans to developers.
The state awarded an $81,000 grant to the town in 2020 to do an environmental evaluation of the former Webster Mill. The dilapidated building is on a 1.64-acre site that has been unused for nearly 20 years.
Pirnie, who drafted the proposals for both grants, said he’ll be working on supplemental grants that will help identify other sites in town.
“No developer in their right mind will acquire a site without knowing what they are getting into,” he said. “We can clean up every contaminated site in town.”
The funding awards are among 236 communities nationwide to receive grants totaling $147.3 million in EPA Brownfields funding through its Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup Grant Programs, the agency said.
Besides North Attleboro’s revolving loan grant, Massachusetts is receiving seven other grants under the Brownfields Cleanup and Assessment Grants, and two grants for supplemental funding under the Revolving Loan Fund program.
“With these seven grants, Massachusetts will have the tools needed to clean up and reinvest in brownfield sites, while protecting the environment in the process. This is an important step for climate resiliency in the Bay State,” said U.S. Representative Jake Auchincloss, D-Newton, whose 4th Congressional District includes North Attleboro.
