JUST THE ACTS: 

• The city used $60,000 in EPA 

Assessment Pilot funding to perform 

environmental assessments on the 

Chestnut/Edwards street site. 

discovery of high levels of lead 

contamination made cleanup a major 

priority. 

• In addition to other funding sources, the 

Kellogg Foundation at Trinity College 

provided $38,000 to fund cleanup of the 

site through phytoremediation. 

from the college employed this innovative 

cleanup method, which uses plants to 

extract lead from soil. 

• The community also played a major role 

in planning the site's transition, specifically 

through community organizations such as 

the South Arsenal Neighborhood 

Development Corporation and the 

Organized North Easterners/Clay Hill and 

Northeast community group. 

Hartford Creates Community

Greenspace in a Blighted

Neighborhood 

Hartford, CT

Residents from one of the poorest neighborhoods in Hartford, 

Connecticut, are enjoying an aesthetic revival of the area. 

this revival is the transformation of a hazardous brownfield adjacent to a 

local school into greenspace benefitting the entire community. The city's 

efforts, along with those of EPA and other federal and state agencies, have 

brought new opportunity to Hartford's distressed areas by focusing on 

brownfields reuse. 

Thirty percent of the land in Hartford has been abandoned since 1986 due 

to migration of the city's heavy manufacturing industry. tatistics show the 

economic consequences: 

125,100 was identified as living below federally defined low- to moderateincome levels. 

minority Clay/Arsenal neighborhood, where unemployment rates climbed 

as high as 24 percent. 1 years, students attending a school located in 

this neighborhood, Quirk Middle School, were forced to pass an unsafe 

and unsightly dump full of tires, mattresses, oil cans, and other debris. 

Known as the Chestnut/Edwards Street property, this site had once been 

home to a paint store before being abandoned. 

Now, thanks in part to assistance from EPA and other federal agencies, 

the Chestnut/Edwards Street site has been transformed into a 1.74-acre 

greenspace that includes open playing space, a nature path, and a 

community garden that is the pride of community groups and local students 

who contributed to its planting. 

grant from EPA's Brownfields Initiative in September 1997, and has since 

received $150,000 in supplemental funding and $200,000 as a Brownfields 

Showcase Community finalist. 

to perform preliminary environmental assessments on the site in December 

1998, followed by a more detailed assessment inApril 1999. The discovery 

of high levels of lead contamination from the former paint store made 

cleanup of the site a major priority. The City of Hartford committed 

continued 

Thanks in part to assistance 

from EPA and other federal 

agencies, a brownfield in one of 

Hartford's poorest neighborhoods 

has been transformed into a 1.74-

acre greenspace that includes 

open playing space, a nature path, 

and a community garden that is the 

pride of community groups and 

local students who contributed to 

its planting. 

Community gardens at the Chestnut/ 

Edwards street site. 

F

The 

Students 

The impetus of 

S

in 1995, 62 percent of the city's population of 

The situation was perhaps the worst in the near-100 percent 

For 1

The city received an initial $200,000 

The city used $60,000 of this Pilot funding 
Community gardens at the Chestnut/ 

Edwards street site. 

The Chestnut/Edwards street site with 

phytoremediation in progress. 

CONTACTS: 

For more information contact 

U.S. EPA-Region 1 (617) 918-1424 

Or visit EPA’s Brownfields Web site at: 

http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/ 

$108,000, a Community Development Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 

Development provided $100,000, and the Knox Parks Foundation used $30,000 

in funding from a 1997 EPA Urban Environmental Initiative Grant to design 

and develop the site into recreational greenspace and a garden ready for 

planting. 

Trinity College provided $38,000 

to fund cleanup of the site 

through phyto-remediation 

techniques. 

college 

innovative cleanup method, 

which uses Indian mustard plants 

to extract lead from the soil as they 

grow. 

The community also played a major role in planning the site's transition, specifically 

through community organizations such as the SouthArsenal Neighborhood Development Corporation 

(SAND) and the Organized North Easterners/Clay Hill and Northeast community group (ONE/ 

CHANE). tudents from Quirk Middle School were also involved in garden planting. Teacher Wendi 

di Corcia stated, "I was always taught to leave a place better than when you came in. 

project gives our students ownership in this neighborhood. 

is their garden. 

House of Bread soup kitchen as it receives fresh produce from the 

site. Area residents are finally able to enjoy open greenspace, and 

the local economy is now growing as development spreads to 

properties adjacent to this former brownfield. 

This thriving, urban greenspace is an example of the innovative 

brownfields restoration projects currently underway by the City 

of Hartford. 

The Kellogg Foundation at 

Students from the 

employed this 

S

This gardening 

This is where their neighborhood is. This 

It gives them a sense of pride." The garden also has a positive impact on the adjacent 

Brownfields Success Story Solid Waste EPA 500-F-03-009 

Hartford, Connecticut and Emergency May 2003 

Response (5105) www.epa.gov/brownfields/