Realistic redevelopment: cleaning up industrial property can rejuvenate run-down inner city neighborhoods.

• Author: Dale, Jeff
• Position: Includes related article on federal funds for brownfields

Ask an average citizen what he thinks a brownfield is and you will probably get a blank stare. Ask the same question of a council member of a large, populous city, and you may catch a smile and a few encouraging words.

Brownfields are abandoned industrial properties found in inner cities and older industrial neighborhoods - and they represent a promising building block for successful urban redevelopment. A property that is cleaned up and put back into productive use creates jobs, tax revenues and a healthier environment in a neighborhood that may desperately need a boost.

"When I was a kid, we would call these places the 'bums' jungle.' Now, brownfields cleanup brings businesses, jobs and taxpayers back to the city," says Pennsylvania Senator David Brightbill. He was the chief architect of legislation in 1994 that created a landmark redevelopment program that subsequently won an award for Innovation in State and Local Government from the John E Kennedy SchOol of Government and the Ford Foundation.

In recent years, all levels of government and business have begun to address the barriers to redeveloping brownfields. State legislatures have created programs that offer financial incentives, allow cleanup standards to be tailored to the new use of the property, and provide protection against future liability for parties that responsibly clean up and redevelop these areas.

By most accounts, however, nearly 500,000 brownfields exist across the country. Despite many success stories, even highly recognized state programs can count reclaimed property only in the hundreds of sites, and some warn that these represent the most economically promising prospects.

THE BASICS ON BROWNFIELDS

A brownfield is a deserted or little used industrial site that may be contaminated with relatively modest levels of hazardous or toxic waste. Some accuse strict environmental laws for creating the phenomenon, mainly Superfund (the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act), passed in 1980. Superfund was Congress' response to public outcry over the potential hazards of toxic waste seeping into groundwater. It requires cleanup of the most severely polluted sites across the country.

Pushed by public advocacy groups and environmentalists, Superfund required cleanup to strict, nearly pristine, conditions and made those responsible for the pollution pay for cleaning up the mess. Many states established programs modeled after the federal law for the remaining hundreds of thousands of sites that weren't polluted enough to qualify for the federal program.

In practice, the strict standards and prescriptive requirements of both federal and state Superfund programs resulted in expensive and lengthy cleanup processes. "There was a stigma attached to any property that appeared on a government list," says Barbara Coler, a division chief in California's Department of Toxics.

Selling a contaminated property became increasingly difficult. Buyers were leery of environmental contamination because Superfund laws included strict joint and several liability clauses.

"In the 1980s, there was extreme paranoia over becoming involved at a contaminated site," says Jerry Stahnke, who has worked in Minnesota's award-winning voluntary cleanup program since it was established in...