Evan Bradnt, Pottstown Mercury
POTTSTOWN — Montgomery County will receive another $1 million from the federal government for cleaning up and reusing polluted industrial sites.
The announcement was made Friday by Janet McCabe, the deputy administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who was in town with a number of politicians and noteworthies of all levels of government to get a look at places in Pottstown that have benefitted and could benefit further from such funding.
The current poster child for brownfield cleanups is the former Pottstown Plating Works site at the very visible corner of Industrial Highway and South Washington Street, where a concerted effort by local, county, state and federal governments, partnering with a determined local investor, has resulted in the long-polluted property finally being cleaned up in preparation for a return to productive use.
“It’s been wonderful to hear about the local heritage here in Montgomery County,” McCabe said, noting southeast Pennsylvania’s role at the heart of America’s industrial revolution. “But we left behind a legacy of pollution that needs to be cleaned up.”
Providing funding for the cleanup and reusing of places like Pottstown Plating, which has remained vacant and polluted since it closed in 2009, “provides the spark that unlocks other revenue and local investment to create the economies and jobs of the future,” McCabe said.
The borough’s tax base can benefit too, McCabe said, noting that studies have shown a 5 to 15 percent increase in property values follows in the wake of the cleanup of a former industrial site. “For every dollar” from the EPA’s Brownfield Cleanup Fund, “another $20 is leveraged” from other public and private sources, McCabe said. “I would say that’s a pretty darn good return on investment.”
“We’re so grateful for this $1 million,” said Valerie Arkoosh, chairwoman of the Montgomery County Commissioners. “These were thriving businesses in their day, but many of those business processes have changed and as they closed, they left in their wake some pretty toxic chemicals.”
“And, let’s face it, many of those brownfields are sitting in our most vulnerable communities, said Arkoosh. “Investments like this in places like Pottstown goes a long way toward correcting some of the inequities this community has faced.”
“This is a shining example of what happens when federal, state and local government cooperate on and partner with a local businessman.” said state Rep. Joe Ciresi.
“Honestly, I think this could be a national model of how to patchwork funding together to make places like this into an asset,” said Rebecca Swanson, executive director of the Montgomery County Redevelopment Authority which receives the federal brownfield funding and makes a final determination on where it is directed.
Praising the progress at the site — “I almost fell into a pit last time we were here” — Swanson said, “Pottstown is bringing together a coalition of people who are working really hard to bring Pottstown back to be a shining star in Montgomery County.”
Prior to the press conference, McCabe and the other government officials were given a tour of seven places in Pottstown that have already benefitted from EPA brownfield funding, mostly grants for conducting environmental assessment studies.
Locations included a site on Keystone Boulevard where the Iron Glob Entertainment complex is being proposed; Pollock Park, a former scrapyard where contaminated soil has been found; the borough’s public works garage; the former Mercury newspaper building which a $227,000 EPA loan is helping to convert into a boutique hotel, and the former Hess lot at the corner of College Drive and South Hanover Street, which the borough is trying to redevelop.
In the last 10 years, Pottstown has received $860,000 in brownfield grants from the Environmental Protection Agency.
“We love to show off what your money is doing,” said Peggy Lee-Clark, executive director of Pottstown Area Economic Development. “Without these funds,” she said, waving her hand at the Pottstown Plating building, “this project never would have happened. As I’ve often said, it’s a marathon, not a sprint and some days it’s a slog.”
The key partner in this project, and the man doing a lot of the slogging, is a man named John Jones, a Pottstown native who has undertaken the cleanup and reuse of several former industrial sites in the borough.
As Lee-Clark has pointed out many times, it is not just public funding that has been involved in the cleanup. Much of the funding has been private investment by Jones.
“I am a Pottstownian forever and my business is here,” Jones said. “I’ve been scared about this building for a long time, but we are now in a position where I think we’re getting over the hump and, with everybody’s help, we’re going to get there.”
Madeleine Dean, D-4th Dist., praised Jones for “taking a risk, believing in Pottstown and making this investment.” The project, she said “is an example of the power of partnership.”
Part of that partnership was made possible by the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the inflation reduction act, both of which received votes from Dean in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The infrastructure bill contains $245 million for brownfield remediation this year and will contribute $1.5 billion over the next five years, Dean said. In addition to the economic benefits, there are also the public health benefits of removing dangerous pollutants from the environment, she said.
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