Menominee Tribe gets $2 million EPA grant for brownfield cleanup planning

The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin won a $2 million federal grant that will pay for contamination testing and reuse planning on reservation properties before any cleanup begins. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the grant June 24 as part of $12.9 million in brownfields grants across Wisconsin. The tribe’s Community-wide Assessment Grant for States and Tribes will fund 18 Phase I and 14 Phase II environmental site assessments, 10 cleanup plans, eight site reuse plans and community engagement.

The first step is not excavation or demolition. It is figuring out which blighted or potentially polluted sites on the reservation need attention, whether contamination is present, and what it would take to make those places usable again for housing, public facilities, small business development or other community needs. The EPA's brownfields grants are for assessing, safely cleaning up and sustainably reusing contaminated properties, and targeted assessments can help communities understand potential contamination and plan for cleanup and redevelopment at no cost.

The reservation sits about 45 miles northwest of Green Bay in Keshena, shares nearly coterminous boundaries with Menominee County and includes Keshena, Neopit, Middle Village, Zoar and South Branch.

Tribal nations face common brownfields problems, including reacquiring contaminated lands, staff turnover, capacity limits and too little money to cover assessment and redevelopment work. The grant gives the Menominee tribe technical and planning support to move from uncertainty to a workable cleanup map.

Its presence in what is now Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois dates back 10,000 years, its land base fell from about 10 million acres to a little more than 235,000 acres today, and federal recognition was restored with the Menominee Restoration Act on Dec. 22, 1973. Environmental Services Director Jeremy Pyatskowit is the point person on that work, and the tribe’s Community Development Department is based at W2794 Go-Around Rd. in Keshena. The EPA’s Jan. 28 deadline for its FY2026 brownfields competition came before the award.