As mentioned elsewhere in the article, the issue for “public company” landowners is the perception that they are “deep pockets” and they will always have liability. Thus, their desire to control their liability by “mothballing” the site. We have made the alternate point of view – that is, the best insurance is a good clean-up. Leaving the site in a contaminated state is not good – not good for the environment, not good for the community and not good for the public company that wants to be a good steward of their assets. In a perfect world, a combination of market forces and incentives/penalties would come into play to get all of these contaminated sites remediated. We aren’t in a perfect world just yet – but things are starting to happen.

One key issue in all of this is “finality” for the landowner. With the possibility of “re-openers” and third party tort claims impacting the calculus of the landowner as to alternate uses of the property, it is easy to see why some choose to forego remediation and redevelopment. The answer may partially lie in some form of “finality”. That is, could we in the brownfield industry find some way to “bridge the gap” and provide some assurance to the landowner that their obligations are complete. This isn’t easy – as the regulators and the environmental community rightfully want to know that “the community” isn’t left holding the bag for a failed clean-up. I know that the NBA is working on the issue (at the California Chapter for sure, I think at another state as well).

As to the SOX / Fin 47 discussion, my take is that this alone won’t do it. I think there are two ways it may happen (in conjunction with these). The analyst community has great influence. It is their job to ferret out the unknown and unreported. There are more than a few Fortune 1000 companies that could be brought to task by the analyst community for failing to give full effect to these issues. This is likely to have a much bigger impact than the questioning of the auditors – for the simple reason that it is in the public forum. A more positive means to the same end may occur when some “well intentioned” public company figures out that they can 1) make money by remediating and repositioning their assets and 2) earn significant corporate goodwill in the process. If and when one of these occurs, we may see an increased awareness which will translate to more sites coming to market.

I’m flattered by your interest. Thanks a lot. You may want to talk to the Prism magazine people though, just in case there is some legal problem with reposting.

As for a comment:

I think what struck me most about the brownfield issue was the amount of intellectual firepower behind brownfield development. Between the scientists, the environmental lawyers, and the financiers, it’s taken a bunch of very bright people to make these redevelopments possible. More than anything I guess, the story gave me a kind of confidence I didn’t have before that brownfields really can and are being redeveloped successfully.

Hope that helps,

Ben