PRESS RELEASE

National Brownfield Associations
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 27, 2008
Contact: John Spizzirri
Tel: 773-714-0407 x125
johns@brownfieldnews.comNBA to Assist British Columbia’s Brownfield Cleanup Efforts

The National Brownfield Associations (NBA) was recently awarded a grant from the British Columbia Ministry of Environment (B.C. MOE) to provide advice in the development of policies and recommendations for streamlining procedures to redevelop brownfield properties and improve pollution prevention practices.

I receive the attached newsletter from Joe Ferrari at the EPA. It’s a very useful source of information for finding brownfields-related events and other resources.

EPA New England 12/20/07 Newsletter - Brownfields What’s New (pdf)

What a great primer for landowners, developers, City Staff, and anyone else interested in brownfield redevelopment. This focuses on Colorado but most of the information and lessons learned can be applied nationwide.

A local Government Guide to Site reuse and Economic Development - click here to download

Generally, remediation means providing a remedy. Environmental remediation deals with the removal of pollution or contaminants from environmental media such as soil, groundwater, sediment, or surface water for the general protection of human health and the environment or from a brownfield site intended for redevelopment. Remediation is generally subject to an array of regulatory requirements, and also can be based on assessments of human health and ecological risks where no legislated standards exist or where standards are advisory.

Visit Remediation Page on Wikipedia.org - click here

You need to follow link to the Wikipedia.org page to read this part of the entry, but I thought it was so interesting…and frustrating…. that after 25 years of effort and billions of pounds, only about 8 square kilometers of brownfields have been cleaned and re-used. I guess if it was easy, everybody would be doing it…

Brownfield status is a condition, within certain legal exclusions and additions, of real property, the expansion, redevelopment or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant, which may include petroleum hydrocarbon releases. Brownfield status generally means there are use or development restrictions on the site.

In town planning, brownfield land is an area of land previously used or built upon, as opposed to greenfield land which has never been built upon. Brownfield status is a legal designation which places restrictions, conditions or incentives on redevelopment.

Read Remainder of Entry at Wikipedia.org Brownfield Status Page - click here.

Interesting tidbit below about origins of the term “brownfields.”

Brownfields are abandoned, idled, or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations. ^[1]

In city planning, brownfield land, or simply a brownfield, is land previously used for industrial purposes, or certain commercial uses, and that may be contaminated by low concentrations of hazardous waste or pollution and has the potential to be reused once it is cleaned up. Land that is more severely contaminated and has high concentrations of hazardous waste or pollution, such as Superfund or hazardous waste sites, does not fall under the brownfield classification.

Note that in the United Kingdom and Australia, the term applies merely to previously-used land. See below.

The term “brownfields” first came into use on June 28, 1992, at a U.S. congressional field hearing hosted by the Northeast Midwest Congressional Coalition. Also in 1992, the first detailed policy analysis of the issue was convened by the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission. The U.S. EPA funded its first Brownfield pilot project in 1994. The term has been in common use in other countries since circa 1975^[2]

^{Visit Wikipedia.org Brownfields Page - Click Here}

The description below says there are between 30,000 and 100,000 brownfield sites in Canada. That reminds me of one estimate I”ve heard for the U.S., which is between 400,000 and 2,000,000 sites; I’m always blown away to realize just how much we don”t know about the inventory of contaminated land.

I like the way the Kilmer describes brownfields as land where redevelopment is complicated by REAL OR PERCEIVED environmental contamination. Isn”t it true that a negative perception can hurt almost as much as a real problem?

KILMER BROWNFIELD EQUITY FUND

Kilmer Brownfield Equity Fund is a private equity investment fund run by experienced environmental and financial specialists dedicated to creating value for investors through the clean-up and reactivation of environmentally-impaired “Brownfield” properties in Canada.

2007 Northwest Environmental Summit
The Premier Conference on Environmental Issues

Plans are being made for the 2007 Northwest Environmental Summit scheduled for October 17 & 18 at the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center.

The Northwest Environmental Summit is a must attend event for anyone who needs to stay ahead of environmental law, regulation, policy and technology best practices.

Information Sharing:

This site is a portal to the tools and resources available for the redevelopment of environmentally stressed property. These tools are available for the wide variety of stakeholders in the brownfield community, including private and corporate landowners, city staff, academic institutions, environmental agencies, brownfield and redevelopment related organizations, real estate developers and brokers, the environmental community, the environmental insurance industry, environmental attorneys, risk-management consultants, federal, state and local governments, financing/capital sources, land planners and other designers involved with development, and anyone else who can benefit.

This is an online community formed to bridge the gap between those people that need information about the development of brownfield properties but don”t know where to start looking, and those people who have made it their priority to understand one or more of the specific issues surrounding the process and are in a position to share their knowledge and abilities. There are plenty of sources where one can read about a single component of brownfields development or about the services of one particular provider. This community aims to weave many of those single components into a more comprehensive understanding of how they should and need to work together.

Dynamic, User-Based Content & Interaction:

We aim to promote more than the static environment existing when one reads a few facts and surfs on; rather, we encourage postings of experiences, conversations, knowledge-sharing, new ideas, services that can be provided, etc., and believe that wholesale sharing of information on a real-time basis is what will push this relatively young and constantly-evolving industry to provide the maximum benefit for the environment and the people who live in it.

The “Online Mapping” portion of this site is still under construction but I will be interested to see whether it reveals any interesting sites, once it’s online.

As landlord and real estate agent for the federal government, the General Services Administration (GSA) understands that property plays an important role in creating livable communities. Federal real property can serve as a catalyst for urban revitalization when reused by localities to provide jobs, contribute to the local tax base, or preserve greenspace. With thousands of federal properties located throughout the country, GSA is partnering with communities to ensure that underutilized federal properties are an active component in the redevelopment of our nation’s urban centers.