An Aroostook County economic development group has received $200,000 in federal funds to help clean up and re-develop industrial sites.

The Northern Maine Development Commission will receive the money as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Brownfields” grant program. “Brownfields” are former commercial or industrial sites with pollution or environmental problems that have redevelopment potential.

Maine received $1.8 million of the $70.7 million in brownfields grants announced by the EPA on Tuesday.

The Northern Maine Development Commission is a nonprofit organization based in Caribou that provides planning, economic and community development, loans and other services to the region.

The commission will use the money to conduct assessments of a half-dozen sites in the area. There are currently 124 brownfield sites in the region.

Robert Clark, the commission’s executive director, said specific sites for assessment have not yet been selected. This is the first time the commission has received EPA funding for brownfields projects, he said.

“We’re very pleased,” Clark said. “Our concentration will be in the village centers and downtown neighborhoods where many of the brownfield sites are located.”

Maine has received more than $17 million in brownfields money to date, according to the EPA. Prominent projects include the planned revitalization of the Eastern Fine Paper facility in Brewer, which has received more than $1.5 million in brownfields funds.

“EPA Brownfields grants are an economic engine, helping vitality to return to our communities, and this influx of new EPA funding will speed up that process.” Robert Varney, regional administrator of EPA’s New England regional office, said in a prepared statement. “These funds will directly improve the quality of life in Maine communities where citizens are working to redevelop and put to good use abandoned, contaminated parcels.”

The other Maine localities or programs that received brownfields funds are the cities of Auburn and Westbrook, Caleb Development Corp. in North Berwick and Southern Maine Regional Planning Commission in Springvale.