When the Saint Paul Port Authority (SPPA) and the nonprofit Vang Pao Foundation applied for an EPA Brownfields 

Cleanup grant in 2004, they did so with a very specific project 

in mind. The City of Saint Paul, Minnesota, already designated 

as an EPA Showcase Community for its brownfields restoration 

successes, is home to a burgeoning community of Hmong refugees 

who immigrated to the United States to escape persecution in 

Southeast Asia. Thousands of Hmong have relocated to this 

Midwestern city, making it the largest Hmong community in the 

country. The Hmong have integrated themselves into the larger 

St. Paul community while working to maintain and celebrate their 

unique cultural identity and traditions.

One of the most sacred traditional rites in the Hmong culture 

is that of the funeral, which involves extensive preparations, 

feasting, and mourning, and can often be a costly, weekend-long 

affair. A traditional funeral often requires an entire community of 

mourners preparing food, eating, performing music, celebrating 

and sleeping near the deceased, all of which takes place at the

funeral home. Playing host to funerals of this scale regularly 

overwhelmed St. Paul’s already established funeral homes, forcing 

Hmong to spend months on waiting lists before being able to pay 

homage to deceased relatives. Because of this, a Hmong non-profit 

named the Vang Pao Foundation reached out to the Saint Paul Port 

Authority, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), and 

the EPA to form an innovative new partnership.

Recognizing the critical need for the Hmong community to 

establish their own funeral home, and acknowledging the lack of

available land, this partnership turned its attention to a dormant 

brownfield owned by the SPPA. This 3.3-acre former waste dump, 

which operated from the 1920s through the 1950s, had already 

been closed for ten years when it was purchased by the SPPA. In 

2004, the Port Authority performed an assessment that revealed 

higher than normal levels of petroleum, asbestos, polychlorinated 

biphenyls (PCBs), lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons 

(PAHs), and other metals in the soil and groundwater.

St. Paul, Minnesota

continued 

JUST THE FACTS:

• Used $400,000 in EPA Brownfields 

Cleanup grants to prepare the 

property for redevelopment.

• Leveraged more than $200,000 from 

state and local funding sources.

• Provides the Hmong community 

two new and much needed buildings 

where funerals can be held.

“Most people think that a new 

funeral home is not something 

to celebrate, but to the 

Hmong community, culturally, 

it’s very significant.”

– Keary Cragan 

Brownfields Redevelopment Provides 

Improved Social Services to Immigrant 

Hmong Community of St. Paul, Minnesota

New friends braved a cold November day to participate in 

the groundbreaking for the new facility (above); 

the completed funeral home (below).
CONTACTS:

For more information on this award, 

or on EPA’s Brownfields Program, contact 

EPA Region 5 at (312) 353-5669

Visit the EPA Brownfields Web site at:

www.epa.gov/brownfields/

Brownfields Success Story Solid Waste EPA 560-F-10-211 

Improved Social Services in the Community: and Emergency July 2010

Hmong Funeral Home, St. Paul, Minnesota Response (5105T) www.epa.gov/brownfields/

Together, the Port Authority and the Vang Pao Foundation applied for and received EPA Brownfields 

Cleanup grants totaling $400,000, in the form of a Hazardous Cleanup grant and a Petroleum 

Cleanup grant, to be used on this parcel of land. The planned redevelopment of the property into a 

Hmong funeral home was intended to advance a larger, surrounding redevelopment initiative, also 

sponsored by the SPPA and funded by EPA grants, to renovate one of the city’s industrial corridors. 

Locating the planned funeral home within this redeveloping industrial area was suggested by the 

SPPA and agreed to by all of the project’s partners, as the property is ideally located outside of St. 

Paul’s bustling downtown in an area where parking is abundant and neighbors 

would not be affected by gathering mourners. According to Keary Cragan, 

EPA Brownfields Project Manager for Region 5, “The fact that this 

Hmong funeral home is in a commercial-industrial area on the west 

side of the city provides them privacy and great parking. Most 

people think that a new funeral home is not something to celebrate, 

but to the Hmong community, culturally, it’s very significant.” 

The Port Authority began work on the property under the 

leadership of the MPCA Voluntary Investigation and Cleanup 

Program (VIC), in October of 2004. EPA and the MPCA have a 

unique partnership in Minnesota in which the Pollution Control 

Agency plays a significant role. EPA-funded cleanups are overseen 

by the VIC Program, the state program that regulates and guides 

Minnesota’s brownfields cleanup activities. According to Cragan, this 

relationship has led to several highly successful projects. “MPCA has been very innovative in 

assisting private developers and communities to voluntarily clean up properties.” It was these kinds 

of creative local, state, and federal partnerships, empowered by EPA grant dollars, which led to the 

cleanup of the Hmong funeral home property.

In addition to EPA’s Cleanup grants for this project, the SPPA leveraged $187,500 from the 

Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development Contamination Cleanup and 

Investigation Grant Program, received a $62,500 Metropolitan Council grant, and committed 

$2,048 from their own budget. Cleanup was completed on December 15, 2004, clearing the way for 

redevelopment, which began in March and wrapped up in August of 2005. The property now features 

not one but two buildings where Hmong funerals can be held, enabling more than one funeral to take 

place without interfering with the cultural customs embraced by the Hmong community. 

Since its opening during the summer of 2005, the Hmong Funeral Home has been in nearly constant 

demand, and has greatly decreased the waiting period and stress for the Hmong community of St. 

Paul. The innovative partnerships, creative resource leveraging, and expertise of EPA, the MPCA, 

the SPPA, the Vang Pao Foundation, and the Hmong community itself all came together to resolve 

the unique cultural challenges on this unconventional brownfields project. As explained by Keary 

Cragan, “I think most people look at brownfields and say, `Well, you’ve got a large industrial site, so 

you need large industry.’ People need to think of new uses for old sites and think of what is needed 

by the community now. [This project] was community driven. It wasn’t the city or the Port Authority 

trying to dictate what the Hmong community needed; it was the community stating what they needed 

and working collaboratively to meet the need. [The project] was driven by the Hmong community 

and it made everyone happy. This is a really positive thing.”