Today Administrator Jackson spoke at the grand opening of Ventower Industries’ wind turbine manufacturing facility in Monroe, Michigan.  The facility was built on a former brownfields site that was restored through EPA and private sector investment, supporting good jobs and cleaning up the community. In its first phase, the Ventower plant will employ 150 people, and could lead to as many as 300 jobs as Ventower expands.

“I am proud to be back in Michigan today to celebrate a project that demonstrates the extraordinary promise of EPA’s brownfields investments, and their ability to restore economic potential and create jobs by cleaning up our communities,” said Administrator Jackson. “What we see here today is a project that returns brownfields to productive use while preserving green space, and supports a clean energy economy that is cutting pollution and putting people to work.”

Read the Administrator’s full remarks.

The Ventower site is one of many success stories for EPA’s brownfields program. Since the program began nine years ago, almost $88 million in grants have leveraged almost a billion dollars in private sector investments and created about 8,700 new jobs in Michigan. Across the nation, brownfields investments and training initiatives have helped create 70,000 new American jobs.

The Administrator visited Michigan earlier this year to announce more than $75 million in brownfields investments being made in communities across the nation.

Read more about brownfields investments.