How multiple Acadiana properties are benefiting from a $1.2M EPA Brownfields grant

This article originally appeared on and was written for Acadiana Planning Commission by Golden Shovel Agency.

A $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is helping the Acadiana Planning Commission plan a future for underutilized properties in four Acadiana communities. The FY2025 Brownfields Assessment Coalition Grant awarded in May is a major milestone for the region. It will help Abbeville, Eunice, Opelousas, and Ville Platte assess ways to return properties suited for rehabilitation to commerce or public use. For the APC, diligence paid off as the success followed after submitting multiple applications in prior funding rounds.

What does an assessment grant fund?

Unlike cleanup grants, the four-year Brownfields Assessment Coalition Grant is laser-focused on funding environmental site assessments and reuse planning. It focuses on the critical early steps in the remediation process and can open the door to other redevelopment funding opportunities or local economic development entities or developers.

“This is not a cleanup,” Kade Jones, Regional Planner with APC, clarified. “This grant is for assessments that will tell you how bad the contamination is.”

Jones highlighted both Phase 1 and Phase 2 assessments would be covered. Phase 1 assessments are a high-level overview noting visible environmental concerns, such as the possible presence of asbestos, lead paint, or mold. Phase 2 digs deeper and involves soil testing, paint sampling, other collections, and laboratory testing to provide hard data. With this data in hand, other possibilities start.

“You use your Phase 1 and Phase 2 results to go and find cleanup funding, or if you’re a property owner or city, cover the cleanup costs yourself,” Jones explained. “Most of the time, people are taking the assessments and going after cleanup funds to get the project completed. This grant pays for up to $1.2 million worth of assessments, and we can also use the funding for planning activities.”

The four-year grant program offers the flexibility to address properties at various stages of evaluation. Sometimes properties already have partial assessments, while others may require community engagement to map out a future.

“That’s where reuse planning comes in – visioning sessions with the public to say, ‘This is what we would like to see on this site.’ When you go after cleanup funding, they want to know the plan and how it benefits the community. The cleanup plan has to have a justifiable community benefit,” Jones shared.

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