Community-Wide Assessment Grants

The City of Tucson (City) received two Fiscal Year 2005 Brownfields Community-Wide Assessment grants of $200,000 each. One grant will be used to assess petroleum products and one grant will be used to assess hazardous substances. Grant funds will be used to develop an inventory and prioritize properties, conduct approximately 1,000 environmental transaction screens, and perform Phase I and II environmental site assessments at sites throughout the City's Empowerment Zone (click here to see a map of the Empowerment Zone). Funds will also be used to track and manage the data gathered using a Geographic Information System database.

Initial efforts are focused on properties that are owned by the City and properties along the Stone Avenue Corridor from Grant Road South to 18th Street and then along 6th Avenue to 25th Street. Additional parcels within the in the City, including those in the Rio Nuevo Project, Oracle Road Corridor, Barrio Anita Neighborhood, and Historic Warehouse Arts District, will be inventoried as part of future efforts.

The inventory will be on a Geographic Information System application (GIS) platform that can be used to inventory, search, query, and evaluate Brownfields properties for reporting, marketing, and environmental tracking purposes. A web-based application using the GIS application developed above to disseminate Brownfields property data to the public, including private citizens, real estate and development professionals, and other interested parties. The website will provide the public with the following features:

• A search function that will allow users to search for specific property characteristics such as address, parcel number, land use, zoning, parcel size, property values, and environmental impacts.
• A mapping page to link geographic features to environmental data and other identified criteria.
• A reporting tool to allow users to print property information suitable for marketing, reporting, and other purposes.

Read the EPA's announcement of the grant award at http://www.epa.gov/swerosps/bf/05grants/tucson.htm.