The Nashua Telegraph is reporting that the City of Nashua has received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to help with the clean-up and redevelopment of the city’s Millyard complex, which is an area of Nashua that city planners have long wanted to redevelop but have not been able to because it contains a structure with significant asbestos contamination. This structure, now known as The Boiler House, was home to the primary boiler system for a textile mill that used to be the main occupant of the 61-acre site and it contains a large amount of asbestos because of this. The asbestos is not a danger in its present form, but if the city is to complete the Millyard redevelopment then the asbestos inside the Boiler House will have to be properly contained and disposed of.

The grant from HUD was made through its Brownfields Economic Development Initiative, which the HUD website describes as:

The Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI) is a key competitive grant program that HUD administers to stimulate and promote economic and community development. BEDI is designed to assist cities with the redevelopment of abandoned, idled and underused industrial and commercial facilities where expansion and redevelopment is burdened by real or potential environmental contamination.

City planners say that the 75% of the grant money will be dedicated to the asbestos removal. The HUD grant comes in addition to a $200,000 grant that the city received last year from the EPA.

Labels: asbestos