DOTHAN, Ala. – Efforts to revitalize Mobile’s Africatown community got another boost last week when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the city of Mobile would receive a $300,000 grant to evaluate seven polluted sites in the area and form cleanup plans.
The grant was one of three “brownfields” grants in Alabama announced by the EPA last week to promote the cleanup and redevelopment of sites where pollution issues are holding back efforts to turn old industrial sites into usable land.
In addition to the Africatown grant, the city of Bessemer got $300,000 to assess cleanup opportunities in its downtown area, and Dothan received $297,000 to clean up an old electrical transfer station.
Africatown was founded by the enslaved passengers on the Clotilda, believed to be the last ship to import African slaves into the United States, decades after the practice was outlawed. The residents were freed after the Civil War but could not afford to return to their home country, so instead founded Africatown where they spoke their native language and preserved their African culture for decades.
Now, after the discovery of the Clotilda shipwreck last year in the Mobile River, Africatown is seeing a flurry of new economic activity in what became a heavily polluted and economically poor section of the city. Mobile has also received grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and money from the BP Deepwater Horizon settlement to improve the area, build a $3.5 million new welcome center and an Africatown Heritage House, which will display some of the artifacts from the Clotilda.
“The discovery of the Clotilda has set in motion a collaborative effort that really has not existed in the city in a long, long time,” Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said of the grants. “It seems that the stars are aligning and so receiving this grant at this time, I can say it’s perfect timing.”
The Africatown grant will focus on an abandoned 40-acre manufacturing facility, a multi-family housing development, a former paper manufacturer and a historic sawmill.
The grants will be used to evaluate the properties, develop cleanup plans and conduct community outreach.
“This grant has really great potential to help revitalize Africatown,” U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne said. “We could have some environmental issues there, and certainly a proper assessment will help us understand the extent to which we have those.
“Africatown holds a special place in our nation’s civil rights history, and we need to preserve that story so it can be understood by future generations. This grant will help us do that.”
Bessemer gets $300,000 to revitalize downtown
Bessemer’s grant proposal included funding for evaluation of several downtown sites, including the old city hall building, a shuttered furniture manufacturing facility and a 1.5-acre rail site.
EPA Regional Administrator Mary Walker said the $300,000 grant included funding for 21 different site assessments in the downtown area and to develop cleanup plans and conduct community outreach for those efforts.
“They’re really going to focus on their downtown area, most of which is located in a qualified opportunity zone,” Walker said.
Opportunity zones are economically distressed areas identified by the federal government that are eligible for tax incentives to spur redevelopment.
Dothan gets $297,000 to remove old substation
The city of Dothan was selected to receive $297,000 in funding to remove an old electrical substation at the corner of Linden and Whiddon Streets near the city’s downtown. The property is located next to Aunt Katie’s Community Garden, an urban garden that offers numerous educational and outreach programs. The garden allows people to rent small plots to grow vegetables for themselves or to sell, and hosts a farmers’ market.
Dothan got an EPA assessment grant in 2017 to evaluate the property and now that the information is in, the property is ready to be cleaned up.
The new grant will fund the removal of contaminated material from the substation and allow garden to expand. Dothan Mayor Mark Saliba said the transfer station had been abandoned since 1997.
“It’s going to increase the existing footprint that we have there to allow us to continue to grow that outreach program,” Saliba said.
