While environmental and economic development regulations at the federal, state, and local levels can impede the cleanup and reuse of brownfields, local governments also are beginning to recognize how public-sector initiatives can help level the playing field between brownfield and greenfield development. Brownfield revitalization increasingly is seen as an opportunity to alleviate sprawl, traffic congestion, and air quality problems in metropolitan areas. At the same time, communities are viewing brownfield reuse as an opportunity to address much-needed job development and training for dislocated workers and minority populations.
Citizens, lawmakers, and federal agencies themselves are urging the reform of laws and regulations that are perceived to discourage cleanup and reuse. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), eager to prove the theory that a clean environment and a growing economy go hand in hand, has proposed amendments to Superfund and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and is supporting brownfield pilot projects that are allowing local governments to experiment with funding, cleanup, and public involvement scenarios. EPA's Common Sense Initiative, aimed at devising "cleaner, cheaper, and smarter" ways to regulate business practices, has given rise to brownfields initiatives within the iron, steel, and metal-finishing industries, that are exploring ways to prevent new brownfields and build new companies on existing contaminated sites.
In response to community interest in securing for local residents some of the jobs associated with brownfields remediation and redevelopment, the EPA and the Department of Labor are extending job training courses to interested community colleges. Moreover, the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration will continue to play a critical role in transportation projects that contribute to urban redevelopment, air quality improvement, and sprawl control. Combined with local initiatives to protect open space, transportation planning can tilt redevelopment back towards the brownfields.
This chapter highlights several key federal and local programs that, strategically used, could assist local economic development practitioners interested in the cleanup and reuse of brownfields.
The EPA, whose mission is to protect human health and the environment, is being pushed by Congress, voters, and businesses to consider how its actions affect the economic well-being of regulated communities and taxpayers. Yet the agency confronts a conflict as it faces, on the one hand, increasingly complex and costly environmental problems, and, on the other hand, a public backlash against intrusive federal regulations and a declining agency budget.
Marking its foray into economic development, the brownfields issue has prompted EPA to try to remove onerous barriers to the redevelopment of properties in distressed urban and small-town neighborhoods. No longer the bearer of bad tidings for these communities, EPA is leading an inter- agency effort to facilitate revitalization through environmental cleanup. The agency's brownfields efforts have received bipartisan praise and endorsements from the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, the United States Conference of Mayors, the National Wildlife Federation, the United Church of Christ, the American Public Works Association, and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
EPA's Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative (BERI) targets assistance to cities that have identified contaminated sites offering the greatest opportunity for remediation and economic activity. EPA initially sought to award grants to approximately ten pilot cities, chosen through a competitive application process, that would demonstrate model opportunities to leverage financing; organize public- and private-sector support for specific cleanup projects; and demonstrate the economic and environmental benefits of cleanup. Cities were encouraged to suggest innovative uses for the grant monies, although all were prohibited from using BERI funds for actual site cleanup. Cleveland, Ohio, Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Richmond, Virginia, received grants in 1993 and 1994 of approximately $200,000.
Administrator Carol Browner dramatically increased the agency's efforts in her January 1995 Brownfields Action Agenda, which includes four broad steps: brownfield pilot projects; clarification of liability issues; partnerships and outreach; and job development and training. Many of these actions will provide tools to local officials working to attract redevelopment.
Browner in January 1995 expanded the number of pilot demonstration projects from ten to 50. The agency subsequently received more than 100 applications from cities, rural towns, and suburbs. In July 1995, EPA announced additional awards of up to $200,000 to Baltimore, Maryland; Birmingham, Alabama; Cape Charles - Northampton County, Virginia; Detroit, Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana; Knoxville, Tennessee; Laredo, Texas; Louisville, Kentucky; New Orleans, Louisiana; Rochester, New York; Sacramento, California; St. Louis, Missouri; and Trenton, New Jersey. In addition to these awards to single jurisdictions, grants were given to the West Central Municipal Conference, consisting of 38 small towns and suburbs directly west of Chicago, and to seven mill towns in western Oregon. Figure 1 on the next page shows the location of the 18 current EPA brownfields pilot projects.
| National Pilots | |
| Baltimore, MD | Navajo Nation |
| Birmingham, AL | Newark, NJ |
| Bridgeport, CT | New Orleans, LA |
| Burlington, VT | New York, NY |
| Cape Charles-Northampton County, VA | Oregon Mill Sites, OR |
| Charlotte, NC | Phoenixville, PA |
| Chicopee, MA | Portland, OR |
| Chippewa County/Kinross Township, MI | Rhode Island |
| Cleveland, OH | Richmond, CA |
| Detroit, MI | Richmond, VA |
| Emeryville, CA | Rochester, NY |
| Houston, TX | Rome, NY |
| Indianapolis, IN | Sacramento, CA |
| Kansas, City, KS & MO | St. Louis, MO |
| Knoxville, TN | Stockton, CA |
| Laredo, TX | Tacoma, WA |
| Lawrence, MA | Trenton, NJ |
| Lima, OH | West Central Municipal Conference, IL |
| Louisville, KY | Worcester, MA |
| Lowell, MA | -- |
| Regional Pilots | |
| Atlanta, GA | Minnesota |
| Boston, MA | Northwest Indiana Cities |
| Buffalo, NY | Philadelphia, PA |
| Camden, NJ | Pittsburgh, PA |
| Clearwater, FL | Prichard, AL |
| Dallas, TX | Provo, UT |
| Duwamish Coalition, WA | Sand Creek Corridor, CO |
| East St. Louis, IL | San Francisco, CA |
| Illinois | Shreveport, LA |
| Indiana | West Jordan, UT |
| Miami, FL | -- |
Profiled below are EPA's first three pilot projects, which are expected to yield ideas and lessons about ways to return abandoned urban sites to productive use. Each of the three communities has articulated a reuse strategy that links community groups, investors, developers, regulators, and others interested in reclaiming contaminated sites and in using those sites to stimulate new jobs and economic activity.
Cuyahoga County, which contains the City of Cleveland and 58 suburbs, was the first pilot city chosen under EPA's brownfields economic redevelopment initiative, receiving a $198,000 grant in November 1993. The Cuyahoga County Planning Commission, official recipient of the grant, is no newcomer to the problem of brownfields. The Commission long has monitored the effects of urban sprawl on the seven-county area through its ongoing spatial analysis, entitled "Dynamics of the Cleveland Region." This analysis shows that the city and most Cuyahoga County suburbs lost population and tax base during the 1980s as manufacturing facilities closed and jobs moved out of the city. These losses were compounded by the steady investment in infrastructure and new neighborhoods throughout the region's outlying "greenfields."
The Commission hosted a summit and educational symposium in 1992 to further highlight the Cleveland metropolitan area's challenges, chief among them being the rapid decay of about 10,000 acres of developable real estate. A 42-member Working Group subsequently proposed to set risk assessment and cleanup standards targeted to brownfields, improve local government's capacity to act as an advocate for both public health and economic development related to brownfields, limit the liability for new owners of these properties, and establish a local revolving loan fund for site assessment and cleanup activities in targeted areas of the city.
With the two-year EPA grant, the County Planning Commission has sought to instigate cleanup activity at three sites, in order to establish models that local governments could follow to tackle the financial and regulatory barriers confronting brownfields reuse. The Midtown Corridor site contains a historically relevant building that the city acquired in 1983. Asbestos removal and cleanup alone are expected to cost $80,000. Future plans involve razing all the other buildings on the block to make way for parking, in order to attract shopping to the area. The City of Cleveland is working with the local economic development organization to identify potential new owners of the site, but difficulties in securing adequate financing have delayed work at the property. The second site features a building that is itself clean, but which overlies contaminated soil and groundwater. The Commission contracted with a local groundwater remediation firm to test three different technologies for cleaning the site. One part of the Hauserman site, as it is called, already has been occupied by a new user, who has begun soil vapor extraction and groundwater remediation.
Cuyahoga County launched its pilot project in the midst of huge changes to the state's voluntary cleanup program. The Ohio Real Estate Reuse Act, enacted in 1994, was heralded by many in the development community as a significant step toward eliminating barriers to reuse by reducing liability for new owners. The law offers to parties that voluntarily clean up contaminated property a Covenant- Not-to-Sue from the state (although technically this covenant cannot prevent the federal government from bringing legal action). The law, similar to one in Massachusetts, significantly "privatizes" the state's cleanup program by requiring volunteer parties to choose an independent site cleanup professional who will certify to the state that the site has been cleaned according to plan. This professional will issue to the volunteering party a "No Further Action" letter, which is then sent to the state. Ohio EPA subsequently will issue its Covenant-Not-to-Sue. In addition to other provisions, the new law also offers low-interest loans and a ten-year state tax abatement on increases in the value of the remediated property.
In addition to EPA's pilot grant, Cuyahoga County has seen additional funding and support flow to its brownfields efforts. EPA provided a separate $150,000 grant to the "Environmental Workforce Equity Project" in order to position the Cuyahoga County Community College (known as Tri-C) as a major player in ensuring that local residents benefit from employment and other activities associated with site cleanup and redevelopment. Tri-C is developing environmental science curricula and trying to recruit and train local residents and high school students for future employment opportunities. The college also plans to offer free training workshops for local employees of minority-owned and small businesses, and to offer them non-credit courses in environmental education. Targeting both minority residents and local businesses, it also is acting as an outreach center for general education about the risks and opportunities posed by contaminated sites. In addition, Cleveland State University (CSU) received a two-year grant from the U.S. EPA Comptroller's Office to develop a Brownfields Redevelopment Finance Center, the only one of five Environmental Finance Centers nationwide that is focused on brownfields. Towards that goal, CSU sponsored a symposium to discuss the results of a 1994 survey on the financial capacity of area municipalities to conduct brownfields remediation activity. A conference is planned for Spring 1996 to address further brownfields financing obstacles and opportunities.
EPA awarded its second brownfields pilot grant to the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut's largest city. With a population of approximately 141,000, Bridgeport boasts an impressive manufacturing history; access to rail, land, air, and sea transport (as one of Connecticut's three port cities); a highly skilled workforce; and a densely populated region that ensures a large market for businesses locating there. Despite these advantages, the city has lost more than 10,000 manufacturing jobs during the last decade, leaving 8.3 percent of the city's residents unemployed, with more than 20 percent unemployed in some areas. Bridgeport's Office of Planning and Economic Development (OPED) believes the major factor impeding reinvestment in the city is the widespread contamination of more than 500 acres of prime industrial land. Many of the buildings targeted for cleanup and rehabilitation date to the early part of the century.
The EPA grant has enabled Bridgeport to begin tackling a number of tasks, including development of a brownfields inventory, site selection criteria, and targeted outreach to potential developers and businesses that might be recruited to improve the sites. Ultimately, the city's goal is to select between two and six sites that will serve as models for eliminating financial and regulatory barriers to cleanup and reuse. Like Cuyahoga County, Bridgeport plans to target redevelopment efforts within specific corridors of the city — the West End and Seaview Avenue. Seaview Avenue, the city's oldest industrial area, still is home to many of Bridgeport's remaining manufacturing jobs, although a recent study suggested that more than 2,000 of these jobs are "at risk."
Bridgeport has selected Roy F. Weston, Inc., an engineering and environmental management firm, to assist in the process of selecting the model redevelopment sites. To date, the firm has developed an inventory of almost 300 of the most "developable" properties within the targeted corridors. Weston, as well as a local architectural engineering company and a real estate development firm, also are scheduled to conduct the following tasks:
The Office of Planning and Economic Development acknowledges that site selection is only a fraction of the redevelopment effort. Also critical is active outreach to neighborhoods affected by brownfields, as well as to businesses that could be potential owners of redeveloped properties. In June 1995, OPED and the Housatonic Community College held an "education summit" to discuss the recruitment of local residents and students into job training opportunities associated with environmental remediation. The "Environmental Education and Job Training Summit" drew more than 80 people from local schools and colleges, private industry, the Chamber of Commerce, and local, state, and federal agencies. Through a series of roundtable presentations, the summit covered higher education activities that can broaden access to environmental courses; specific job training certificate programs; urban environmental education; and community-based response. The latter discussion, with attention given to environmental justice concerns, focused on educating the general public about the risks, reasons, and opportunities extant in brownfield sites.
OPED also plans a series of "Investors Forums" that will present to targeted developers, financial institutions, and other businesses an accurate picture of the redevelopment potential at the selected sites. To further its efforts, the city has sought and received the cooperation of local and state economic development and environmental agencies; support from local business interests, such as the Bridgeport Regional Business Council and the United Illuminating Company; and a funding commitment from Connecticut's Urban Sites Remediation Program, which is authorized to issue bonds to support site assessment and cleanup. In addition, other resources may be available to the many abandoned industrial sites that lie in Bridgeport's state-designated urban enterprise zone, and that will be included in the city's federal enterprise community projects.
Richmond, Virginia, received its EPA grant in November 1994, the result of a carefully constructed application linking the city's brownfields challenge with its Empowerment Zone application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The State of Virginia already had named part of Richmond a state Enterprise Zone positioning the city to use Title XX Social Service Block Grants for site assessment and remediation efforts. The city wanted to leverage its brownfields pilot grant to develop strategies that cope with the problems accompanying urban decay, such as crime, poor education, deteriorated housing, and health issues. Unfortunately, the city did not receive federal Empowerment Zone status, and the need for additional financial resources to implement its proposed brownfields strategy became more acute. Richmond's Office of Economic Development (OED) quickly launched a major lobbying effort within the Virginia General Assembly to expand the benefits available under the State Enterprise Zone Program; OED also requested that the governor name the North and East End areas of Richmond as Enterprise Zones. Success in both these endeavors has enabled the city to move forward with its brownfields strategy.
Chief among Richmond's activities is the readying of a 64-acre parcel of land owned by CSX Transportation, Inc., in the city's South End Enterprise Zone. This targeted land transaction is part of the city's ongoing business retention/business expansion campaign that uses available financial incentives — from both the city and state — to encourage large employers to remain within the city's boundaries. All told, the city has access to almost $1 million from various state funds in order to attract or retain business activities. OED has identified at least one, and possibly four or five, major corporations that are interested in the CSX site, provided the price is competitive with that in outlying areas and, of course, that environmental contamination does not complicate the transaction.
Richmond is pursuing a contract with CSX that would result in a "joint development agreement," whereby both parties would take responsibility, as well as profits, for the upgrade, marketing, and sale of the property. Major improvements are anticipated, including the building of a road that provides access to this rail site. The consultants and OED also suspect the presence of hazardous materials in the soil or groundwater from years of industrial activities there. If the city-hired consulting firm discovers any environmental contamination at the site, Richmond would be allowed to revisit the terms of the agreement; it could (1) terminate the agreement and face no further liability; (2) proceed with the land use plan and exclude that portion of the property requiring environmental remediation; or (3) remediate the entire property to permit development. If the city chooses to remediate the site, it must be done in cooperation with CSX.
OED also has sought funding to launch training workshops and other courses at the local community college in order to improve the public's understanding of environmental health issues surrounding brownfields cleanup and redevelopment. Recognizing that the success of reuse projects depends largely on trust and support from the affected community, the city has acknowledged its poor history in coping with environmental justice concerns, and it has started to confront this challenge. The city plans to use its Neighborhood Teams Process, a citizen empowerment program, to ensure that local residents and community leaders are part of the process in determining the cleanups and uses selected for affected properties. The city also will spend approximately $50,000 to develop courses that help small and minority-owned businesses recognize and take action to address environmental hazards, as well as to adopt pollution prevention technologies. At the close of this one-year project, the city will evaluate "the number of community residents and business managers who have received training, the number of times the community has participated in environmental decision making, the number of small and minority businesses who have complied with government environmental requirements, and the amount of new investment in new environmentally sensitive technologies."
To date the EPA has awarded brownfield pilot grants to 60 recipients. Applications from these grants show a creative mix of proposed activities. Highlights from some of the project summaries follow.
· Knoxville, TN. Explore private party acquisition of properties; and work with lenders to establish low-interest loans to environmentally friendly companies.
Click here to go to the most recent listing of EPA Brownfields Pilots
Liability relief has been the rallying cry for many Superfund critics, as well as municipal officials, lenders, and local developers trying to attract investment to distressed communities. EPA's new Superfund Administrative Reforms address lender liability, municipal acquisition liability, prospective purchaser liability, liability for property owners situated above a contaminated groundwater aquifer, and other future actions the agency hopes to take to increase the certainty in brownfield property transactions. These reforms are discussed in detail below.
Caught in a tug-of-war between industry, Congress, and environmental groups, EPA Administrator Carol Browner announced in 1994 her intent to enact Administrative Reforms to Superfund, independent of the congressional schedule. The agency in May 1995 issued a series of policy directives, guidance documents, and pilot approaches to alleviate some of the program's common problems. In announcing these Administrative Reforms, EPA sought to transform the law to be, in its own words, "faster, fairer, and more efficient." At least three of the package's 12 Administrative Reforms have direct bearing on how and whether properties characterized as brownfields are likely to be cleaned and returned to productive use.
This guidance updates and expands EPA's practice since 1989 of using "covenants not to sue" in certain types of land purchase agreements where the agency benefits directly (either through reimbursement for cleanup costs or cleanup of the property) by a prospective purchaser's (or prospective operator's or lessee's) decision to buy contaminated property. The new guidance expands the circumstances under which EPA can consider such covenants. Specifically, the agency now recognizes that, in addition to direct benefits it accrues through reimbursement for cleanup, response, or other costs associated with a contaminated property, it also should consider the indirect benefits afforded to host communities in the form of job creation or retention, productive use of abandoned property, and general revitalization of urban area "blights."
Under this guidance, the agency instructs its regional offices, when considering whether to enter into such an agreement, to ensure that the following criteria apply to the property in question and to the prospective purchaser:
The agency is required to guard against offering a Covenant-Not-to-Sue and failing to reap ample benefit on behalf of the community or the federal government. Specifically, EPA is required to consider: the property's purchase price, whether the agency will be left with any unreimbursed costs, and whether those costs can be recouped in the purchase price; the property's current market value, whether the purchaser is paying below or above that value, and what the expected value of the rehabilitated property will be; and the prospective purchaser's identity, whether it is a private company, a not-profit community organization, or small company.
Liability Exemption for Owners of Property Containing Contaminated Aquifers
Billed as both a Superfund Administrative Reform and an effort to remove barriers to brownfields redevelopment, this new EPA policy states that the agency will not pursue cleanup action or costs against innocent land owners whose groundwater has been contaminated by off-site migration of contaminants. Case-by-case study must be undertaken to show that the owner was neither directly nor indirectly responsible for the contamination. In addition, property owners who are being pursued by responsible parties for cleanup of the groundwater may seek de minimus settlements from the EPA as long as they are innocent with respect to the hazardous release.
This action is significant given the vast number of hazardous waste sites affected by groundwater contamination, and the inability of residential landowners to take reasonable steps to mitigate or stop that contamination. EPA's Administrative Reform similarly will absolve lenders and prospective purchasers from liability for the contamination of such properties.
Although this Administrative Reform is targeted at the process for selecting cleanup remedies for National Priority List (NPL) sites, the EPA believes it will serve as a useful tool for stakeholders involved in determining cleanup standards and future land uses for brownfield sites. The directive is intended to cover two objectives. First, it is designed to encourage early dialogue among community residents, planning authorities, and local officials involved in anticipating future land use. Second, it is intended to allow EPA to use information about expected pathways and risks to decide ultimately upon a cleanup remedy. Figure 2 shows the typical sources and types of information that the agency judges would be of use in encouraging parties to investigate and determine likely land uses for a remediated site.
The agency emphasizes that it may be advisable in certain cases to work out several land use scenarios in order to provide the community with a range of information on the projected cost of cleanup, reductions in risk posed by the site once remediated, and any future restrictions placed on the land. Sites for which consensus exists regarding likely future land use (e.g., a former industrial site being returned to industrial use) would not normally be candidates for multiple land use and risk scenarios.
Of particular relevance to brownfield cleanup is the directive's guidance on additional outreach and communication activities in cases where environmental justice may pose concerns. First, EPA acknowledges that community residents have enjoyed varying degrees of input on land use master plans and other items of local interest. The agency asserts the need to work more closely with those neighborhoods that feel disenfranchised from this process, and to use innovative ways to achieve outreach to residents unfamiliar with mainstream politics.
EPA's January 1995 announcement also removed approximately 25,000 of the 38,000 sites from Superfund's Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Information System (CERCLIS). For economic development officials, this federal action formally removes the stigma of potential liability associated with these sites, thus improving their marketability. This action was praised by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and others.
Sources and Types of Land Use Information
SOURCE: Environmental Protection Agency, Land Use in the CERCLA Remedy Selection Process, May 1995. |
Recognizing the cross-jurisdictional nature of brownfield cleanups, EPA also is working to clarify requirements for cleanup and liability in situations involving both RCRA corrective action cleanups and leaking underground storage tanks. As mentioned earlier, court rulings have stymied EPA's attempts to waive certain requirements under RCRA corrective action cleanups, including RCRA permit needs, groundwater monitoring at arid or remote sites, and land disposal restrictions for contaminated waste. As congressional interest mounts, EPA is working to revise its corrective action regulations in order to streamline and clarify the regulatory jurisdiction over cleanup of contaminated media. In addition, the agency is expected to issue regulations in Fall 1995 regarding when lenders are liable for properties containing underground storage tanks, which is often the case at brownfield sites. Finally, the states and EPA have been working to adapt Risk-Based Corrective Action (RBCA) that will identify regulations regarding cleanup of leaking underground storage tanks. The effort is intended, again, to target resources to those sites that truly pose a risk to human health and the environment, while expediting cleanup, closure, and redevelopment efforts at less contaminated sites.
The rationale for including a public participation program in any cleanup or redevelopment effort seems elemental. Most would agree that securing the buy-in of affected residents is critical to the success of such efforts. Yet public participation programs often are dreaded by local officials, and they are criticized by some as inadequate and by others as outdated. Emerging issues — such as environmental justice, the need for job creation and training in distressed communities, and taxpayer dissatisfaction with the subsidization of damaging corporate behavior — are overlapping with local efforts to engage community residents in brownfields revitalization efforts.
Public involvement is given brief mention in CERCLA Section 117, in which EPA is directed to offer communities affected by NPL sites the opportunity to comment after cleanup remedies are proposed, after the original remedy chosen is altered for some reason, and when a Consent Decree is available for public review. Numerous complaints by local residents affected by Superfund site cleanups have helped EPA understand the need for early, thorough, and ongoing community involvement in virtually all decisions regarding site cleanups and reuse. As a matter of principle, the agency has sought over the past several years to expand opportunities for public hearings, disseminate site information to broader cross-sections of the communities, and present understandable information on risks associated with alternative remedy selections. During the Superfund reauthorization debate of 1994, several companies testified as to how such steps help streamline identification, selection, and community acceptance of a preferred remedial action.
By most accounts, similar operating protocol should apply to brownfield cleanup and redevelopment efforts. Local governments have sought to enhance the public's understanding and buy- in, helping ultimately to improve the pace and efficacy of these projects. In Bridgeport, Connecticut, the Office of Planning and Economic Development explained "brownfields basics" to more than 80 community representatives at its job summit in 1995, which was part of an overall plan to improve community acceptance of redevelopment proposals anticipated in the city's brownfields corridors. A Rhode Island legislative proposal would require that developers negotiate with host communities, on issues such as the level of available tax abatements, before they obtain state benefits to rehabilitate brownfields. The approach helps local officials explore the community's willingness to absorb certain costs based upon expected further benefits resulting from rehabilitation.
At the federal level, Superfund reform bills in the House and Senate only touch on public access issues associated with brownfields reuse, requiring, at a minimum, prior notice of selected cleanup plans and the opportunity to comment on them. On the other hand, provisions relating to NPL cleanups would require federal and state officials to provide detailed information about risk assumptions behind proposed cleanup scenarios, to actively solicit and respond to community concerns regarding a site, and to ensure public access to all non-confidential documents regarding the site's cleanup and redevelopment.
EPA has recognized the importance of encouraging public participation "wherever feasible" when awarding covenants not to sue in its prospective purchaser agreements. The agency's new guidance reflects the belief that, since purchasers are receiving public benefits from a Covenant-Not-to- Sue and protection from CERCLA liability, EPA should invite ample public comment on proposed settlements. Furthermore, EPA acknowledges that basic channels of public notification, such as announcements in the Federal Register, are inadequate for reaching the most acutely affected populations, and the agency has proposed that its regional offices conduct outreach and notification on a case-by-case basis.
Local officials involved in brownfield site redevelopments, however, would be the first to acknowledge that these components alone do not allay local fears and concerns. Increasingly, communities are linking brownfield redevelopment to environmental justice and opportunities for neighborhood residents to benefit directly from the cleanups. Below is a discussion of the considerations that affect public participation programs designed and implemented by local economic development officials trying to rehabilitate brownfields.
Debates surrounding brownfield reuse are expanding to address broader issues about the quality of urban and small town environments devastated by plant closings, skyrocketing unemployment, and shrinking tax bases. The environmental justice movement, defined generally as people of color seeking to build healthy and sustainable communities, has been growing in strength over the past half-decade as local residents seek to remove sources of toxic contamination from neighborhoods and prevent new sources from entering.
Simply put, these communities seek a new paradigm of clean communities and clean jobs, a message similar to those advocating waste reduction, conservation, pollution prevention, recycling, and other measures of industrial efficiency as steps toward protecting manufacturing jobs and community health. EPA defines environmental justice as "the fair treatment of people of all races, cultures and incomes with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, programs, and policies. Fair treatment means that no racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic group should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from the operation of industrial, municipal, and commercial enterprises and from the execution of federal, state and local, and tribal programs and policies."
Low-income and communities of color increasingly see a critical intersection between their objectives and the cleaning and redeveloping of brownfields. Many environmental justice advocates are attracted to the opportunity of correcting past urban planning mistakes (i.e., the siting of facilities) in the process of cleaning abandoned, blighted property.
Landfills, waste transfer stations, incinerators, or other intermediary processing facilities often are sited proximate to communities of color. Experts differ on how this relationship evolved. Do local governments and businesses find these communities willing hosts because such facilities promise jobs and increased revenues through disposal fees and other measures? Or does the presence of such facilities naturally drive property values down and affluent families out, thus making area residences attractive to low-income individuals? Whatever the order, a recent study based on 1990 census data shows that nonwhites are 47 percent more likely to live near hazardous waste treatment, disposal, or storage facilities than are whites. The 1994 report, sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the United Church of Christ, and the Center for Policy Alternatives, shows that the number of nonwhites living near these sites has increased from 25 percent in 1987 to 31 percent in 1994. Reclamation of brownfields sites in these communities thus confronts unique challenges in the selection of remedies, cleanup standards, and future land uses.
Zoning issues also pose questions for policymakers exploring brownfields cleanup. In cities and towns that have "grown up" around industrial facilities, where backyards literally abut facility boundaries, environmental cleanup and enforcement officials often are faced with an impossible task: How to clean the site adequately to residential standards, even though the facility and property likely will continue to be used for industrial purposes?
The trend in brownfields policy to tailor cleanup plans to future land use raises anew the issue of zoning for affected communities. In cities without zoning laws, such as Houston, Texas, the interests of industry and an increasingly aware public continue to clash, as residents try to cope with contaminated properties and businesses try to move away from community opposition. Federal and state officials acknowledge that special arrangements need to be established in situations where residential and industrial properties abut. EPA's new Prospective Purchaser Agreement, for instance, requires the agency to consider the benefits of jobs created as a result of cleanup and redevelopment, and the potential costs of further environmental contamination caused by continued operation of industry in a mixed-use industrial/residential area. Environmental justice advocates see in this flexibility some opportunity to inject discussions about environmentally sustainable enterprises occupying former brownfields next to residential areas, or of converting past industrial properties to green space or non- polluting commercial operations.
While EPA has been the lightning rod for complaints from local residents about cleanup decisions and results, the process most often has broken down at the local level, in real neighborhoods and cities. In response to this problem and anticipating its impact on the BERI program, EPA recently sponsored five public meetings through its National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. The agency invited local community residents to air their views, concerns, and hopes regarding cleanup and redevelopment opportunities in their neighborhoods. Recommendations from the meetings — held in Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Oakland, CA, and Atlanta — will be used during EPA's evaluation of applications for brownfields pilot awards.
Job development and training also are ripe for discussion in the brownfields debate, particularly by groups representing dislocated workers, welfare recipients, or the chronically unemployed. Brownfields, after all, often are created when factories close their doors due to downsizing, bankruptcy, or relocation. In one area of Northwest Indiana, 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost over the last 20 years, and thousands of acres of industrial sites have been abandoned or left vacant. In response, the building, construction, and steel trade unions have argued that during site assessment and remediation, skilled and unskilled laborers can be candidates for typical urban revitalization jobs, including construction and demolition activities. With the completion of remedial technical courses offered at local community colleges, such workers also can perform more specialized work involving removal of asbestos, lead-contaminated materials, and other hazardous substances.
The EPA, and to a lesser extent the Department of Labor, are launching efforts to integrate job training opportunities into brownfields cleanup efforts. EPA's goal is to ensure that local community colleges and other existing training centers adapt curricula to attract individuals who might benefit from the cleanup and development activities underway in their communities. The agency envisions a range of curricula and training courses tailored to community needs, including 20- or 40-hour certificate courses for mid-range construction jobs, as well as two-year associate degrees that would allow the individual to transfer to a four-year college or university to complete engineering and other technical degrees related to environmental remediation.
Bridgeport, Connecticut, one of EPA's first brownfields pilot cities, held a "job summit" in June 1995 as part of the Economic Development Office's public outreach strategy. The summit attracted students, community college administrators, business executives, environmental and economic development officials, and local job training agency officials. Workshops covered environmental education, business and employment opportunities in cleanup disciplines, and the health hazards posed by illegal dumping and other conditions characterizing brownfields. City officials acknowledge that the link between environmental education and economic development is rarely made, but they argue that such linkages must be part of a comprehensive strategy that enlists all actual or potentially affected parties to convert brownfields to productive use.
With a grant from EPA, the Hazardous Materials Training Research Institute (HMTRI) is developing and disseminating environmental education materials. HMTRI is a consortia of local community colleges nationwide that sees a growing need for community colleges to fill a gap in the education of dislocated workers, the chronically unemployed, and even local government officials finding themselves ill-equipped at adapting to a changing budgetary and regulatory environment. Advocates of community college involvement in brownfields cleanup and redevelopment argue that these institutions, largely because of their low overhead costs, are much cheaper than four-year universities. Community colleges also increasingly offer what is known as "seamless education," where students starting off with the intention of completing a two-year associate degree can subsequently continue their education at a four-year college without having to make up course requirements. This approach has both a cost and educational advantage. For instance, where a university engineering curriculum might be rooted almost entirely in abstract issues of technology, community college courses typically offer hands-on technical work that improves the marketability of an engineering degree in the environmental remediation field.
Several challenges confront community colleges as they move to meet the demand presented by brownfields. First, these institutions must determine — through personal contacts with employers, public officials, unions, and other stakeholders — that there will be redevelopment jobs available. Second, these colleges must not exaggerate the potential of brownfields reuse to cure a multitude of urban ills, unemployment among them. Third, they must locate the greatest need for education, be it technical, regulatory, public outreach, or all of the above. Finally, community colleges must seek out new sources of funding for this type of course development. HMTRI suggests that community colleges try to tap into state programs as well as EPA's planning grants.
In addition to working with community colleges and their trade associations to develop training sessions and curriculum, EPA has assigned staff in each of its ten regional offices to be the central contacts on brownfields issues for interested states or private parties. The agency also has targeted other staff to provide technical assistance to brownfield efforts in Chicago, Detroit, and the state of Maryland. Finally, EPA's cooperative efforts — with the Economic Development Administration, Department of Labor, and Department of Housing and Urban Development — continue to expand the government's multi-faceted approach for converting brownfields to productive enterprises.
Existing strategies aimed at transportation planning, traffic congestion mitigation, air quality improvement, and preservation of open space can supplement EPA's Superfund and brownfields programs in facilitating the reuse of industrial sites. Many of these strategies can be linked creatively to help tilt the balance toward brownfields redevelopment. Below is a brief description of some of these measures, as well as examples of how individuals, cities, and towns are using them.
As millions of Americans flee urban centers and sprawl into undeveloped areas, economic development practitioners face an array of challenges. The City of Chicago projects only a 4 percent population growth rate in the next 20 years, yet it predicts that a staggering 25 percent of the remaining undeveloped land surrounding the metropolitan area will be developed. St. Louis, Missouri, is another victim of "donut development," where infrastructure and housing continue outward, leaving the urban core abandoned and empty.
The human costs include inner-city crime, unemployment, poverty, and exposure to contamination. From an environmental perspective, these trends blight urban areas and threaten sensitive ecosystems. The abandoned steel mills ringing the southern coast of Lake Michigan, for instance, contain unchecked pollution that harms Great Lakes water quality and, hence, the drinking water for 28 million people living in the Great Lakes Basin.
Vigilant attention to development priorities can help reverse these patterns and redirect growth and investment back into existing cities. The more local government officials place their redevelopment plans and hopes in a larger context — i.e., improving transportation and air quality through high-density, mixed-use development — the easier it will be to secure community, regulatory, and financial support. Attempts to refashion our nation's cities on the tenets of environmental protection and sustainable development already are underway. Following are examples of local initiatives to protect open space, as well as descriptions of federal environmental and planning laws that, through creative combinations, can help local and state officials encourage developers to invest in brownfield cleanup and reuse.
The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) is a landmark law that takes a comprehensive look at how transportation needs affect a number of societal, economic, energy, and environmental factors. ISTEA is heralded with broadening the diversity of interests invited to collaborate on transportation planning and priority setting, expanding from the traditional state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) to include public interest groups, private-sector companies involved in supplying and building transportation infrastructure, and freight and transit services. The participation of these and other new parties is an important factor for efforts targeted at brownfield cleanup and redevelopment and the preservation of open space.
Under ISTEA Section 134(f), federal certification of MPO transportation plans requires consideration of 15 factors, including
ISTEA also requires that Transportation Improvement Programs, or TIPs, concur with the State Implementation Plans, or SIPs, required under the Clean Air Act. TIPs must focus on factors such as environmental protection, the preservation and upgrade of existing facilities and infrastructure (including both transportation and industrial facilities), land use planning, freight operations, and the development of intermodal operations. All of these factors can help tilt the playing field toward brownfield redevelopment.
Congress designated the National Highway System in fall 1995. The Senate in July 1995 passed such a measure, which includes an amendment allowing governors the discretion to use ISTEA's Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Fund (CMAQ) to enhance inter-city rail travel, in addition to the fund's originally proscribed use as a way to improve highway and mass transit operations. For congested areas like the Northeast Corridor, the Los Angeles-to-San Diego route, or the Detroit-to-Chicago route, use of CMAQ could help reduce automobile traffic. Spin-off benefits encompass the potential enhancement of affected train stations and surrounding brownfield development.
At the local level, a growing number of urban planners and government officials recognize the value of transportation access to private citizens and businesses, of locating home, work, and recreation close together through high-density, mixed-use development. Added to this model is the trend toward transportation-oriented development, a concept developed by urban architect Peter Calthorpe, which seeks to replace automobile-centered development with that based on public transit, and to reclaim land otherwise used for automobiles for pedestrian and other uses. This concept, beginning to take root in several American cities as well as internationally, can tip the balance even further toward developing brownfields. Bridgeport and Baltimore, for instance, are remediating brownfield sites based upon their inherent geographic access to multi-modal transportation — highway, rail, barge, and air — as well as to existing energy, water, sewer, and telecommunications infrastructure. A recent study by the Regional Plan Association for Union County, New Jersey, proposes "transportation development districts" to assist with the capitalization needs of multiple developers who share a financial interest in funding road and related infrastructure improvements that will help revitalize several brownfield sites. Finally, even a few utility companies are beginning to examine preferential electric rates for infill development in order to offset the enormous costs of extending utility lines and services into ever-distant suburbs.
In response to air pollution, congestion, and other environmental problems, other cities are pursuing policies to discourage automobiles from the urban core. Amsterdam voters, for instance, banned all traffic from downtown. Other overseas communities have reduced speed limits to 18 miles per hour, cut in half the number of available parking spaces, and improved public transit and bicycle access. Such approaches may seem far-fetched in the car-oriented United States, until one realizes that 43 percent of commuters in Portland, Oregon, use mass transit to get to work.
From a sociological perspective, transportation-oriented development also can address other factors deteriorating the fabric of American communities. Violent crime, vandalism, and illegal dumping are problems associated, at least in part, with abandoned industrial properties; these problems perhaps are exacerbated or allowed to flourish in urban centers where the work force every night literally flees the city for the suburbs.
Similar in concept to ISTEA, the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act (CAA) require states to develop and submit State Implementation Plans (SIPs) for approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Among other guidelines, the SIPs are to outline state plans for meeting air quality improvement goals. For the so-called "dirty air areas" of the country, which include about 112 metropolitan centers that are classified as nonattainment areas for health-based criteria air pollutants (such as nitrogen and sulfur dioxides, both of which contribute to urban smog), CAA Sections 110 and 173 require that new construction entail a "preconstruction review process" to help facility owners determine the needed level of on-site air pollution control technology. Upon such determination, EPA would specify MACT — or maximum available control technology — as a requirement in the facility permit.
Of importance for brownfields redevelopment, these pollution control requirements are more stringent for new construction, including construction in greenfields, than for modifications at existing facilities or for new construction in urban areas. In the latter two cases, "offsets" in emissions levels can be negotiated among polluting facilities to avoid an overall net increase in emissions allowable in that area. (If a company chooses not to devise an offset arrangement, it can instead install pollution controls to keep emissions below regulated levels.)
The CAA goal of "prevention of significant deterioration" of air quality is targeted at keeping clean air areas clean. This underlying purpose, in theory, should help focus development within already developed areas. According to some experts, however, the legal threshold for proving the potential for "significant deterioration" is so high that a proposed facility or development in a greenfield would need to operate at unrealistically dirty levels in order to trigger the regulatory constraint.
Local government familiarity with these CAA regulations is inconsistent across the country, leading to widely diverging views of appropriate development priorities. Consider the Disney America proposal for northern Virginia. In this case, the Virginia legislature approved permitting, transportation enhancements, and other expenditures for the planned 3,000-acre theme park less than one hour from Washington, D.C. The District of Columbia and Maryland members of the Metropolitan Council of Governments, however, were forced to reconsider their approval once they realized that the resulting traffic congestion and air pollution would have used up most of the region's available incremental increase in emissions allowable under the CAA.
EPA has proposed numerous steps that local governments could take to improve air quality (and possibly receive CAA credits) and to increase urban development including:
The EPA attributes roughly 50 percent of air emissions to "stationary sources," such as factories or small business, and 50 percent to motor vehicles or "mobile sources." Thus, despite gains in controlling air pollution from industries, concerns about increased air emissions from additional vehicle miles traveled (VMT) will continue to influence the redevelopment of urban lands proximate to mass transit services, particularly in comparison to developments on the urban and suburban fringe, where access is limited mostly to cars.
Brownfields represent for many urban planners and architects an opportunity to rebuild from the ground up this nation's urban areas and abandoned, inner-ring suburbs. They offer the chance to design cities that integrate work, housing, and recreation through high-density, mixed-use development, and plenty of open space. After decades of public policies that have heavily favored suburban and outer- fringe development, the growing concern for brownfield reuse can level the playing field and offer incentives for businesses and residents to relocate in already developed areas. One key benefit is the long-term preservation and conservation of open space. The value of open space to a community should not be underestimated, argues the Trust for Public Land, an organization that purchases land outright or encourages citizens, through bond issues, to put land into public ownership.
Creating open space and parks is possible because the inventory of sites potentially available for cleanup and redevelopment often outstrips the city's or region's needs in terms of projected growth in employment and economic activity. For example, an inventory of Union County, New Jersey, showed that redevelopment of just 10 percent of the 2,500 acres available for industrial activity would meet the county's projected short-term employment growth. For this reason, the Regional Plan Association, which conducted that inventory, engaged local environmental organizations and state and local officials in a planning process that incorporates wetlands restoration and ecologically sensitive waterfront redevelopment.
Numerous factors — including simple economics and public appreciation of cherished natural resources — can strengthen a city's resolve to focus development inside its borders, to contain sprawl, and to preserve nature. Portland, Oregon, voters in spring 1995 approved a $135-million open spaces bond to preserve about 6,000 acres of land in and around the city, as part of the Metro Government's Greenspaces Program. The vote followed the defeat in 1992 of a similar initiative, which advocates think failed because it did not specify the parcels of land targeted for preservation. Part of the 1995 strategy involved informing low-income and working-class voters about specific park proposals situated in their communities.
This lesson from the Portland vote is valuable for city planners trying to reclaim space in densely populated and developed areas of older cities. In Bridgeport, CT, economic development officials believe that a mix of development options — including industrial, commercial, residential, and open space — can show affected city residents the positive aspects of brownfields reuse. Local opposition to the redevelopment of an industrial site (due to concern over cleanup standards or the future operation of the site itself) may be tempered, in some cases, by additional proposals to create parks and open space in the same neighborhood. Bridgeport officials are considering proposals for an open bike trail linking the waterfront to the city's valley area, thus creating an urban park at a derelict industrial site on the East End. The concept was developed with help from Great Britain's Groundwork Trust, a $35-million consortium of community-based trusts that has fostered open lands projects in about 35 cities in England.
Closer to home, the Trust for Public Land and New York City's Audubon Society played a pivotal role in reclaiming the devastated area known as Jamaica Bay, just a stone's throw from John F. Kennedy Airport. Once a bustling pitstop for migratory birds traveling the North Atlantic Flyway, the bay became a dumping ground for decades, turning a valuable ecosystem into a choking public hazard. Raw sewage threatened water quality and wildlife, while vandals and midnight dumpers exacerbated the problem. Through a collaborative effort, public, private, and nonprofit parties created what is now the Bayswater Point State Park, 12 acres of reclaimed industrial land.
Success at Jamaica Bay depended on several factors, including the city's willingness to accept donation of the land in exchange for private parties managing it; compelling research and documentation on the economic and environmental value of restoring the Bay as an important buffer zone between the human and natural environments; diligent volunteers, such as the City Volunteer Corps, who worked to remove visual pollution from the area; and private-sector donations. The Trust for Public Lands and New York City's Department of Environmental Protection subsequently have returned other shorelines and wetlands, 115 acres so far, to open space. Additional prospects reside in the Jamaica Bay area at what are now municipal landfills, which officials expect to be returned to open space once environmental hazards are remediated.
http://www.nemw.org/cmclean2.htm