The City of Missoula, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the Libby School District are all receiving hundreds of thousands of grant dollars to clean up contaminated and polluted properties. The Environmental Protection Agency announced the grants Tuesday. The grants from the EPA’s Brownfields Program range from $300,000 to nearly $400,000.
According to a press release from federal environmental officials, the City of Missoula plans to build a strategy to clean up former industrial sites. The cleanup is planned for Missoula’s northside and westside neighborhoods in areas planned for housing development.
The Salish and Kootenai Tribes plan to use their funding to outline similar projects at a former auto repair business and abandoned sawmills in Hot Springs, Pablo and Ravalli.
The Libby School District will use funding to clean up a former elementary school contaminated with asbestos, lead-based paint and mercury. The school district says a company planned to buy the school for use as an assisted-living facility after it was cleaned up, but the deal fell through. The district says it will put the commercial property back on the market once clean-up work is finished.
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