Regional Port Receives $600,000 EPA Grant

The Chelan Douglas Regional Port Authority was recently awarded a $600,000 grant from the Environment Protection Agency (EPA).

Chief Executive Officer Jim Kuntz said the grants will fund studies of some undetermined contaminated properties with the hope that those sites will be cleaned up and repurposed.

Kuntz stated, "By doing studies and doing some remediation on the sites for cleanup, you end up with what's called a 'brownfield site'. It might not be the perfect site to put a residential dwelling on, but could be used for industrial purposes."

The EPA put a call out for projects involving brownfields late last year.

"The classic example in the area is our Cashmere Mill District. It used to be an old sawmill site." explained Kuntz, "The port went in with some grant funding, and some of its own funding, and redeveloped the site up to the point that it got clean enough to develop a business park on it."

Some of the sites identified to possibly receive grant funding include the current Chelan County PUD headquarters, the old silicon smelter plant in Rock Island, and property in the Malaga area that the port is exploring for economic development.

Of all of the sites being looked at by the port, the current Chelan County PUD headquarters in downtown Wenatchee is the most high-profile. When construction on the PUD's new headquarters in Olds Station is finished, Kuntz said the PUD property will probably be surplused, adding that the port would have the right of first refusal on the purchase.