YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. received a $1 million federal grant to clean up at least two contaminated sites on Glenwood Avenue and do testing on others on the South Side street.

Funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfield Multipurpose, Assessment and Cleanup program will go toward doing Phase I preliminary reviews of at least six vacant properties on Glenwood Avenue, more extensive Phase II soil borings and samplings on two others, and doing final preparations to clean up two other sites, including a former gas station, said Ian Beniston, YNDC executive director.

“We’re preparing the sites for potential development,” Beniston said. “The properties can be used for housing or businesses or left as greenspace. The sites will be prepped and cleaned.”

While YNDC does work all over Youngstown as well as other parts of Mahoning County, one of its main focuses for years has been redeveloping the Glenwood Avenue corridor.

YNDC has built homes and renovated vacant buildings for businesses along the corridor.

Beniston said the vacant properties on Glenwood Avenue have contamination buried from former gas stations, dry cleaners and other businesses that used chemicals and underground storage tanks.

Depending on what is found during the Phase I work, the money could be used to examine more than the six locations currently planned, Beniston said.

YNDC will hire an environmental contractor to do the work, he said.

“The information gathered can be used for future cleanups,” Beniston said.

The EPA awarded $5.5 million in grants to six agencies or cities in Ohio.

EPA Regional Administrator Anne Vogel, Ohio’s former EPA director, said: “Brownfield grants empower communities to revitalize sites that have long strained local economies and wasted valuable recreation and retail space. Addressing these sites gets rid of dangerous pollution, but it also unlocks economic opportunities, allowing redevelopment and job growth.”