PROVIDENCE – What Cheer Flower Farm has been awarded $500,000 in Environmental Protection Agency funding to expedite the cleanup of a brownfields site in Rhode Island, the federal agency announced Wednesday.
The grant from the EPA’s Multipurpose, Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund will go toward What Cheer Flower Farm’s cleanup of a 2.7-acre brownfields site located at 63 Magnolia St. in the Olneyville section of Providence. Currently that area is contaminated with metals, chlorinated volatile organic compounds, petroleum and inorganic contaminants from previous manufacturing operations.
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Funding for this EPA grant, the largest amount ever awarded in the history of the agency’s brownfield MARC grant program, comes from President Joe Biden’s $1.5 billion infrastructure law.
“We’re working across the country to revitalize what were once dangerous and polluted sites in overburdened communities into more sustainable and environmentally just places that serve as community assets,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “This critical wave of investments is the largest in brownfields history and will accelerate our work to protect the people and the planet by transforming what was once blight into might.”
The What Cheer Flower farm will also use the funds to support community outreach activities.
“The landscape in Olneyville is changing and improving. This federal brownfields funding will accelerate budding progress at What Cheer Flower Farm. The farm and its volunteers have breathed new life into the derelict Colonial Knife site in Olneyville and transformed it into a thriving, inviting flower farm and community asset,” said U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. “Rhode Island has had a great deal of brownfields successes and partnerships. This is another great example of federal funding supporting community-driven revitalization in a way that helps deliver economic and environmental benefits.”
