Last week, GOPC hosted the third webinar in the Revitalizing Ohio’s Brownfields webinar series. Entitled “A Conversation with the Ohio Department of Development,” leadership from ODOD joined participants to provide an overview of the guidelines for the Brownfield Remediation Fund. These guidelines were posted last month, with the first round of applications currently open until January 31, 2022.

The Brownfield Remediation Fund was established in the state’s biennium budget last year, and provides $350 million in grant dollars to assess, cleanup, and remediate brownfields. GOPC has advocated for grant dollars for brownfields cleanup over the past few years. Policymakers at the Statehouse have recognized the importance of dedicated funding for brownfields, including Senate President Matt Huffman, Senator Michael Rulli, and Senator Sandra Williams. GOPC recognized their advocacy during last week’s webinar.

Materials and the recording from last week’s webinar are available on https://www.ohiobrownfields.com/. The OhioBrownfields.com website is a resource of the Revitalizing Ohio’s Brownfields Initiative, and provides tools and resources for Ohio’s communities to connect with brownfields experts, and stay informed with updated brownfields information. The previous two webinars in the series, which focused on planning/prioritizing for brownfields projects and current brownfields funding programs in the state, are also available on OhioBrownfields.com. GOPC highlighted these webinars via Twitter on GOPC’s weekly #ThursdayThreads. You can review that thread on GOPC’s website.

Full details of the Brownfield Remediation Fund, including an FAQ document recently published, is available on the Ohio Department of Development’s website.