News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Putnam County will use a $20,000 grant to help identify properties that cannot be developed for various reasons, such as the presence of chemicals.
Such properties are called Brownfields. County Mayor Randy Porter said the grant came from the Department of Environment and Conservation. Porter said the state will work with the county to conduct a survey of all of these properties and develop a list of everything they find.
“I think what they’ll do is they’ll first do aerial photos looking for these, and then they’ll drive and probably do some reaching out to the public if you know of something like that,” Porter said. “And then, you know, if they do find properties they’ll be contacting the property owners to see if they’re willing to let them, you know, come onto their property.”
Porter said he expects the survey to take place over the course of the upcoming fall and winter. He said the state has additional grants they could apply for to clean up those brownfield properties in the future if the owners allow it.
“If they are, then maybe we’ll look in the future at filing for one of the bigger grants and help remediate the property,” Porter said. “Once we do that, it just opens up that much more land for future development in the county.”
Porter said the survey will not focus on any particular sections of the county but will explore urban and rural areas alike.
“We’re just not sure, I mean, if there’s any of these properties that are out there,” Porter said. “We think there may be a few, but we’d like to find out where, how many we do have and where they’re at.”
Porter said the county had never considering investigating its brownfields or pursuing rehabilitation before they heard about the grants. Porter said they have already been awarded the grant but are waiting to receive the grant contract from the state department within the next forty-five days.
“Once the grant contract is signed and everybody signs off on it and it’s finalized, then we’ll get more from TDEC,” Porter said.
