EPA grant frees up more money for MAPS 3 park in Oklahoma City

The EPA grant of $350,000 is for environmental assessment work the city has to conduct on the site of the 70-acre park, which will extend from the south end of downtown Oklahoma City to the north shore of the Oklahoma River.

Without the grant, the city would have had to pay for the assessments with MAPS money. City officials now can save that $350,000 for another use on the parks project.

The grant is for cities that are developing so-called brownfields sites. Brownfields are plots of land that could be contaminated because of previous activities.

Many of the parcels the city has bought and will buy before work begins on the downtown park were used by industrial businesses since before World War II, and many hazardous substances could be left behind.

“That was before environmental regulations existed and before we cared about what we threw on the ground and knew enough to have those concerns,” said Chris Varga, brownfields coordinator for the city Planning Department. “Whenever you get into older areas like that, you would expect to find some things.”