Mineral County is applying for a $1.517 million grant from the EPA Brownsfield Clean-Up Fund, to remove debris and get the Babbitt site just north of Hawthorne up to code. This property was formerly used for military housing and the 324-acre lot contains multiple parcels that are zoned for commercial/industrial use. However, the presence of asbestos and remnants of the older building foundation (concrete slats, deteriorating piping) has prevented the county from being able to sell the site.
“Our hope is that if we clean up the property, then it will make it more marketable or attractive to a potential investor,” says Mineral County Grant Administrator Alyssa Burke. Southern Tire Mart has already purchased a portion of the property and cleaned up their area, but the county would like to see it in a condition to welcome more businesses.
“We hope to have it ready for new businesses to come in; there’s no match to this grant so it shouldn’t cost the county (or taxpayers) anything if we get the funds,” Burke adds.
According to Mineral County’s application for the Brownsfield Clean-Up Fund, the site was formerly the most viable in 1930’s and 40’s when the Naval Ammunition Depot opened in Hawthorne. During that time, it played an important role in providing jobs for residents and giving the town an economic boost during the Great Depression. The military buildup and booming economy in Nevada and the western states continued through World War II and therefore the government built the Babbitt subdivision to house the Depot’s employees and their families. At the time, there were around 600 housing units and even a mini town center.
While the Depot is still operating under the U.S. Army, the need for military housing has disappeared and older military homes were either demolished or moved in the 1950’s-1990. The property was transferred over to Mineral County in 1998 from the U.S. Army, and the Army cleared the site of any remaining structures and took out the fuel tanks before the transfer. However, a lot of the building materials were simply plowed into the ground with asbestos contained in them.
As taken from the Mineral County EPA Brownsfield Clean-Up Grant narrative sheet:
“Mineral County is largely comprised of federal lands predominantly owned by the BIA, BLM, and USFS. As such, the County is sparsely populated with the unincorporated town of Hawthorne serving as the County seat. The population of the County is 4,487 and the population of Hawthorne is 2,734 persons.
Hawthorne, though small, has an economic base that relies in large part on tourism, the adjacent military base, and increasingly warehousing, transport and logistics. Hawthorne serves as a gateway to many of the natural and wilderness areas nearby and to the popular Walker Lake area. The Babbitt site is located between Hawthorne and Walker Lake, making it a logical site for new commercial, warehousing, and mixed uses.
As noted above, over 90 percent of the County is federal land. As such, Mineral County has limited private lands with the potential to create employment and local taxes. Because of the limited economic development in the target area, 44 percent of the residents are low income and unemployment rates are high. Mineral County is one of the poorest counties in Nevada because of the limited private property to support a healthy tax base. The Hawthorne target area, the largest town in the County, has transportation linkages and infrastructure, is adjacent to other economic generators (Walker Lake tourism and Hawthorne Military Base) and therefore was selected for reinvestment and economic growth.”
View the draft of the grant on the Mineral County website at: http://mineralcountynv.us/departments/comptroller/grants.php. A public information meeting will also be held on November 15 at 5:30 p.m. at the County Commissioners Meeting Room at the courthouse on First and “A” Street, allowing the community to comment or show support.
