Bernalillo County gets $1.5 million to assess brownfield sites
County crews will inspect 55 brownfield sites, with early cleanup targets at 707 Bridge Blvd. and 6313 4th St. NW.
Bernalillo County has won a $1.5 million U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Assessment Grant to inspect 55 brownfield sites across the South Valley, Central Avenue and 4th Street NW corridors. The work will center on 136 properties overall, including former industrial sites, gas stations, dry cleaners, agricultural facilities and vacant buildings. Two parcels, 707 Bridge Blvd. and 6313 4th St. NW, are already being treated as early cleanup targets.
The grant will pay for site inventories, environmental assessments, community outreach, six site-specific reuse plans, three area-wide plans and six cleanup plans. The county can test parcels for contamination, map the liability barriers that have kept them underused and decide which ones can realistically move toward safer reuse. It does not, by itself, clean up a site or open the door to building permits; any move toward housing or commercial redevelopment will depend on what the assessments find and whether follow-up cleanup work is funded.
Bernalillo County’s priority areas include Albuquerque’s Central Avenue Corridor, the Bridge Boulevard Corridor and Mountain View area in the South Valley, and the Fourth Street NW Corridor in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque. The sites under review include 1500-1508 Bridge Blvd., 9111 Broadway Blvd. SE, 5200, 5210 and 5401 Central Ave. NE, 300 and 301 San Mateo Blvd. at Central Ave. NE, 8020 Central Ave. SE, 9710 Central Ave. SE and 405 Mullen Rd.
Marcos A. Gonzales, Bernalillo County’s executive development officer, is the project director. The county will work with the City of Albuquerque and the Village of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque as it identifies sites, conducts environmental assessments and writes reuse plans. The EPA selected Bernalillo County as one of 130 communities nationwide in this funding round, with $248 million distributed across brownfield cleanup and redevelopment efforts.
The county had already received a $600,000 EPA brownfields assessment grant in 2020.
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