Brownfields Redevelopment: Land Recycling at its Best

New York Governor Pataki signed legislation last year creating a new brownfield program to foster the cleanup of thousands of contaminated properties while encouraging new investment and redevelopment of these sites across New York State. The redevelopment of formerly unusable land in New York and other states across the nation helps preserve open space, encourages the creation of new business and new jobs, strengthens the economy, and protects public health.

A “brownfield” is defined as any real property where redevelopment or re-use may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous waste, petroleum, pollutant, or contaminant.  Typically, these sites are former industrial or military sites.  Cleaning up and reinvesting in these properties increases local tax bases, facilitates job growth, utilizes existing infrastructure, takes development pressures off of undeveloped, open land, and both improves and protects the environment.  In 2002, the US EPA passed the Brownfields Revitalization Act, which provided opportunities for financial assistance to communities, strengthened liability protections for contiguous property owners and prospective purchasers of brownfield response programs.  In addition, many states have passed their own Brownfields legislation.  Brownfields have successfully been turned into golf courses, parks, civic recreational facilities, housing developments, museums, and cultural centers.

The New York legislation will refinance and reform the State’s Superfund Program; create a new State Brownfields Cleanup Program to encourage private investment through liability reform, tax incentives, and a predictable process for cleaning up and redeveloping brownfields; improve the municipal Environmental Restoration Program funded through the 1996 Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act to encourage even more municipal participation; and implement liability reform to the State Superfund Program and Oil Spill Program.  The bipartisan legislation was seen as a double victory: pro-environment and pro-job creation.

To find out more about brownfields programs in your state, visit http://www.envirotools.org/statebrownfields.shtml.  For information on the US EPA’s brownfields programs, visit http://www.epa.gov/swerosps/bf/about.htm.  For details on the New York Brownfield Cleanup Program, visit http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/der/bcp/.