EPA grants $500,000 to assess Valley City contamination sites

The South Central Dakota Regional Council won a $500,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assessment grant to study four Valley City sites for asbestos, lead-based paint and petroleum contamination. The award was part of $1.9 million in North Dakota brownfields grants announced Wednesday, June 24.

Federal application materials identify the priority sites as Tourist Park Campground, the Service Center and Superintendent’s Building, the Garbage Shack and the Vandrovec Storage Building. The target area is centered in Valley City and includes census tracts 38003968200 and 38003968300, while the council’s broader Region VI service area covers Barnes, Dickey, Foster, Griggs, LaMoure, Logan, McIntosh, Stutsman and Wells counties.

Tourist Park Campground is the most visible site in the package. The EPA says the 5-acre campground has operated since 1921 and is the oldest campground in North Dakota. It has 27 campsites, and the application notes a deteriorating cinder-block bathhouse suspected of containing asbestos-containing material. The site borders the Sheyenne River to the east and a raised railroad berm to the west, placing the contamination review along one of Valley City’s better-known recreation corridors.

Valley City Parks and Recreation says Tourist Park is the only campground inside city limits. North Dakota Tourism lists it at 675 E Main St., with 27 RV sites, 17 with 50-amp service, tent sites and close access to downtown and Chautauqua Park. That makes the assessment more than a paperwork exercise: if testing confirms the condition of the bathhouse and other materials, the campground could move from uncertainty toward a defined cleanup plan.

The grant cannot pay for full cleanup or redevelopment. What it can do is pay for the environmental work that comes first, the step that shows what contaminants are present and how far they extend. That information is what local governments, developers and state partners usually need before they can compete for remediation dollars or plan reuse of a property.

For Stutsman County readers, the award also runs through Jamestown. The council’s office is listed at 429 2nd St SW, Suite 209, Jamestown, ND 58402, underscoring that the regional development work is coordinated from Jamestown even as the immediate sites sit in Valley City. The South Central Dakota Regional Council says it manages Community Development Block Grants for counties and cities and administers economic development loan programs across the nine-county Region VI area.

The council’s planning portfolio already includes a 2024-2029 Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy and a 2024 annual report. The EPA grant now adds a contamination study that could determine whether familiar local properties, especially Tourist Park, are candidates for future cleanup and reinvestment rather than long-term blight.