2003 CPEO Brownfields List Archive

From: cpeo <cpeo@cpeo.org>
Date: 28 Apr 2003 16:37:09 -0000
Reply: cpeo-brownfields
Subject: [CPEO-BIF] EPA INITIATIVE FOCUSES ON RETURNING SITES TO PRODUCTIVE REUSE
 
Washington, DC For Release 04/22/2003
NATIONAL EPA INITIATIVE GOES BEYOND CLEANUP AND FOCUSES ON RETURNING
SITES BACK TO PRODUCTIVE REUSE FOR COMMUNITIES

Environmental News

Contact: Dave Ryan, 202-564-7827

On Earth Day 2003 in Chicago, EPA announced a comprehensive new
initiative to require the early consideration of land reuse in all
cleanup decisions within the Agency's programs known as Superfund,
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Underground Storage
Tanks, and Brownfields. The initiative called the Land Revitalization
Agenda, outlines over 60 specific ways to help integrate land reuse into
EPA's cleanup programs. Under the agenda, EPA will leverage grant
resources across multiple federal cleanup programs to facilitate cleanup
and reuse. In addition, EPA will test the use of written technical
determinations stating that cleaned-up properties are ready for reuse.

"This is the Earth Day message for the new millennium: cleanup alone is
not enough," said Marianne Lamont Horinko, EPA Assistant Administrator
for Solid Waste and Emergency Response. "Cleanup is the first step, and
the most important, but we must make these sites available to the
community, to provide jobs, needed tax revenues and recreational
benefits that were not there before. Under this new initiative,
revitalization and reuse will be a formal part of our planning at every
single site we clean up under every single program we manage– it's not
discretionary, and it's not a pilot program." Horinko unveiled the Land
Revitalization Agenda today to a group of business leaders at the Union
League Club in Chicago. Two main goals of the agenda are to clean up our
nation's contaminated land resources so that communities are able to
safely return them to productive use and to ensure that cleanups protect
public health, welfare, and the environment and that cleanups are
consistent with future land use.

Throughout the country, many examples demonstrate the benefits of
redevelopment. In Chicago, an Underground Storage Tank Pilot grant
helped a redeveloper turn a former abandoned gas station and auto repair
shop into low-income housing. In Philadelphia, the Publicker Superfund
site was cleaned up and removed from Superfund's National Priorities
List, the tax revenue from the site went up by 40 percent and the market
value for the area around the site increased by more than $47 million.
In Clearwater, Fla., as a result of a Brownfields Pilot grant, a 14-acre
site of a former auto service center that was contaminated with
underground oil, diesel, and gasoline storage tanks is now home to
Information Management Resources Global Center Headquarters. This
project has resulted in more than $51 million in capital investment and
is the largest business deal in the city's history. Redevelopment plans
call for six new buildings with a total of 310,000 square feet of office
space. To date, two buildings have opened, employing more than 500
employees. In the Inner Harbor area of Baltimore, Md., a 27-acre
peninsula was successfully cleaned up under RCRA's Corrective Action
Program. Plans for Harbor Point redevelopment call for 1.8 million
square feet of mixed-used space, representing up to $400 million in new
investment and creating as many as 5,000 jobs.

In January 2002, President Bush signed into law the Small Business
Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act, which authorizes up
to $250 million per year for Brownfields grants, including up to $50
million for the assessment and cleanup of low-risk petroleum
contaminated sites. Since its inception in 1995, the Brownfields Program
has awarded over 500 grants to assess Brownfields sites and to make
loans to conduct cleanups. EPA announced the first Underground Storage
Tank pilot grants in November 2000 and has since awarded 50 grants. As a
result of the RCRA Corrective Action Program, EPA and the states now
have brought hundreds of RCRA facilities under control. Nearly 40
percent of these sites have either completed or made significant
progress in their cleanups.

To learn more about the Land Revitalization Agenda, go to:
www.epa.gov/oswer/landrevitalization.

R-114 # # #

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