Duluth gets $850K to clean polluted sites

The Environmental Protection Agency today awarded $850,000 to the city of Duluth to help the city clean up contaminated "brownfield" sites.

The city will use the funding to turn an abandoned block of freight depots and warehouses into a harbor for recreational boaters on the St. Louis River, and create a revolving loan fund to help rehabilitate other waterfront areas where pollution is a concern.

The funding is especially important to an old city like Duluth, said the city's Chief Administrative Officer David Montgomery.

In Duluth, where there's little to no undeveloped property, most redevelopment candidates are properties that have already had over 100 years of industrial and commercial use.

"Because Duluth does not, unlike newer communities, have unlimited, raw greenfield, clean space to redevelop," Montgomery said. "Our redevelopment opportunities lay on properties that have had over 100 years of industrial and commercial use already on top of them."

Duluth's awards are part of $2.6 million in grants to Minnesota announced by the EPA this week.