Local citizens are invited to attend a Brownfields Initiative Community Meeting on Tuesday January 13 at 6pm. The meeting will be held in the Council Chambers at City Hall, located at 420 N. 6th Street in Rochelle.
The City of Rochelle recently received a grant for $400,000 from the US EPA for a Brownfields Program. Brownfields are real property where the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. Cleaning up and reinvesting in these properties protects the environment, reduces blight, and takes development pressures off greenspaces and working lands.
In this Community Meeting, citizens will have the opportunity to weigh in on the prioritization of local Brownfields sites for rehabilitation. The strongest Brownfields programs are those with a high level of public participation.
The US EPA’s Brownfields Program empowers states, communities, and other stakeholders to work together to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield site is real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.