Ticker: Pawtucket development gets $400K brownfields loan; Oil spill settlement to fund loon conservation

The Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank has approved a $400,000 loan to help in the redevelopment of a brownfields site in Pawtucket.

The loan will finance environmental remediation work as part of the larger Nexus Lofts project that will include 27 affordable market-rate apartments with ground floor office and retail space.

“This $400,000 loan for site remediation work at the Nexus Lofts project will help catalyze further development in the surrounding buildings,” infrastructure bank CEO Jeffrey Diehl said in a statement.

Co-developer Michael Leshinsky called the loan a critical part of the project.

The Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank is the state’s central hub for financing infrastructure improvements for municipalities, businesses and homeowners.

Oil spill settlement to fund loon conservation

A half-dozen projects in New England and New York are slated to receive more than $3.5 million in funding to help protect common loons.

Loons have been the focus of conservation efforts throughout the country, and they have slowly come back in some states, including Maine. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said state and federal regulators have picked six projects to receive money via a settlement stemming from an oil spill.

The Bouchard B-120 oil spill in 2003 in Buzzards Bay off Massachusetts killed more than 500 loons and resulted in a $13.3 million settlement.

One of the grants is an award of nearly $800,000 to the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation to restore breeding common loons in Adirondack Park in New York.

Other projects are in New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3gMVfqZ