The Takshanuk Watershed Council believes it is nearing the end of soil remediation at the former Jones Point property that it purchased three years ago. After the work is completed, the next move likely will be to apply to the state for funding to turn the land into something useful.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation receives annual “brownfields funding” from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said Anne Marie Palmieri, the statewide lead at DEC for the program. “Brownfields are all about re-use,” she said June 29.

A brownfields site is a former industrial or commercial property with “real or perceived contamination that affects its re-use,” Palmieri explained.

The EPA each year distributes money to the states, which allows Alaska’s DEC to allocate funding to nonprofits, tribes and communities. Funding is awarded on a competitive basis. The money does not go out as grants, Palmieri said, explaining that the state issues and manages the contracts and pays for the work.

DEC this year spread $370,000 statewide. Applications for 2019 funding will go out in January, Palmieri said, with the state to receive notice of the federal dollars in April, putting the money to work with the start of the state fiscal year July 1.

The department has run the brownfields funding program since 2003. Among this year’s projects was asbestos and lead paint abatement at an unused 100-year-old fish processing plant and salmon cannery in Kake. The village’s goal is to use the facility as a cultural center, museum, restaurant and tribal offices.

At the Jones Point property, the Takshanuk Watershed Council and its contractor, Cox Environmental Services, are in the final stage of remediation, said Meredith Pochardt, the council’s executive director. The council is reviewing the final plan with DEC, figuring out what needs to be sampled to reach project close-out, she said.

The council early on moved its offices to a building at the site and “the goal is to make Jones Point a hub for community recreation, education and research,” according to the council’s website.

A drainage system has been collecting any runoff for filtration and treatment, Pochardt said, with the council looking toward the next step of applying for the brownfields funding to help with removing the cover over the soil, flattening out the mounds, spreading out the soil and mixing in a fertilizer to promote good microbes that will eat up the last of any hydrocarbons.

It’s called bioremediation, which relies on microbes to metabolize — turn harmless — the organic components of crude oil.

Even after that last stage, Pochardt explained, the council will continue to monitor the site to ensure it always meets environmental standards.

The watershed council bought the 50-acre site in 2015 from the Native village corporation of Klukwan, which had moved contaminated soil to the site from a former oil products tank farm. It was the site of a sawmill before that. The council purchased the property in partnership with The Conservation Fund, a national organization that focuses on protecting land and water while promoting economic development.