Brownfields

A term you need to become familiar with when checking for environmental hazards is “brownfields.” To most of us, a brownfield sounds like a description for a field that is not green,  like the hills in California in the summer or in upstate New York in the winter. From what some people have told us, the term came from the real estate industry to distinguish developed property (brown fields) and undeveloped property (green fields). For our purposes, however, it has a totally different meaning.

 

“Brownfield” is an environmental term used to describe the current state of a specific piece of property. According to the EPA, “A brownfield is a property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. It is estimated that there are more than 450,000 brownfields in the U.S.”

 

Hazardous waste sites and brownfields are basically the same thing. Both of these are likely contaminated with chemicals or other substances considered a hazard to humans and the environment. However, once a property is designated as a brownfield, it gets treated a bit differently than if it was still a regular hazardous waste site. Somebody decided that if the contamination of a brownfield were cleaned up, the property could again be used for some limited purpose. What those limits are depends on the extent of actual contamination and how clean the agencies responsible for the cleanup decide the end result needs to be. The big difference is that when a hazardous waste site gets designated as a brownfield, funds then become available to the prospective developers to evaluate the extent of the pollution and to clean up the site and return it to some type of productive use again. It also takes away any future liability from the developers if more hazardous waste is found in the future or if people become sick from exposure to the site. 

 

The full extent of the contamination at any hazardous waste site, brownfield or not, is never really known until the cleanup is started. Assessment which is the first step may only show part of the contamination. However, most times there are significant environmental issues needing to be addressed and rectified. Sometimes, the extent found at a brownfield site is so bad it is reclassified as a hazardous waste site and development plans are canceled. 

 

There are examples of these contaminated brownfields everywhere. Many brownfields are old manufacturing facilities with toxic waste left onsite or in the soil. They are closed chemical plants with old drums left behind, sitting and leaking in long-closed warehouses. Thousands are dry cleaners who dumped toxic cleaning fluids down their drains and leaked fluids into the soil for decades. There does not need to be enormous amounts of toxic waste to make a place hazardous and make it eligible for a brownfield program. Sometimes, it may only be a half dozen drums of a hazardous chemical or a hole behind a factory which was used to dispose of old transformers with PCBs. The EPA estimates there are over 450,000 of these brownfield sites across the country. 

 

An entire sub-category of these are called petroleum brownfields. There are thousands of these gas stations, DPW yards, and similar places where rusty old underground storage tanks contaminated the soil and groundwater with oil, gas and other petroleum based products and chemicals. The EPA estimates out of the 450,000 of these brownfield sites across the country, almost 225,000 are considered these petroleum brownfields. 

 

The majority of these sites have been sitting vacant for years, contaminated and unused. Some of these sites are still owned, but the owners are unable to develop them because the extent of potential contamination makes it too expensive to do so. The owners can’t sell these properties either because nobody wants the responsibility that the hazardous waste present. If these sites are able to receive a brownfield designation, that would help in several ways. 

 

Owners of properties designated as brownfields may benefit from the cleanup of the site being partially funded by money available from the federal and state government. In addition, the property is more valuable to the owner if they are able to reuse it or at least sell the property with a clean bill of health. Many times the owners are simply unwilling to clean up the site as the cost may be far more than the value of the property. Then, the contaminated land simply sits in the neighborhood with its toxic chemicals still creating potential hazards for the people living nearby. 

 

In many cases these brownfield sites are located in urban areas that are run-down and blighted. The mass migration of people from the cities to the suburbs was instrumental in the desertion of many of these properties. During the period of this migration, the urban areas started to become run-down. Over time the businesses there began to move out to the suburbs too, leaving behind old factories and buildings that in many cases also had large amounts of pollutants from years of use.   

 

In an effort to revitalize the area, city leaders frequently look to work with developers in building on these sites. The benefit to the community is to get these properties back on the tax rolls and producing revenues. The cleanup and redevelopment of these sites encourages other businesses into the area. Property values and job creation often increase in areas where large brownfield sites have been redeveloped into sprawling multi-use projects. 

 

Even though this is an improvement in many ways, it doesn’t come without consequences. One negative effect we especially would like to mention. Along with higher property values come higher taxes and, frequently, gentrification of the area, pushing out the people who lived there during the bad times, people who are now unable to stay during the good times.

 

Legally speaking, the people primarily responsible for the costs of the cleanup are the polluters. Many times, however, those companies have long ago gone out of business. Sometimes, multiple companies have operated on the same property over the years, making it virtually impossible to figure out how much each company is responsible. In the end, it usually falls back on the community to try to arrange funding through the developer and the federal and state agencies with clean-up funds.

 

The costs of a cleanup can range from thousands of dollars to tens of millions. As a result,  many of these sites that will be cleaned up are located in prime urban areas where the property values will substantially increase once clean and developed. Unfortunately, many of the over 400,000 brownfields, especially in rural areas, will stay polluted for some time to come.

 

Many residential areas are in very close proximity to brownfields. It is important to know where there are brownfields near us and what hazards they present. However, it can be very complicated to determine the extent of the risk of living near a brownfield for a number of reasons.

 

1. Future Discoveries 

 

Sites designated as a brownfield first were listed as hazardous waste sites. There is knowledge of known substances on the site that make it hazardous to people and the environment. The quantity and exactly everything that may be at the site is still unknown. When the site gets the new designation as a brownfield, a site assessment study is done to get a better idea of what could be on the site. The assessment does do some onsite investigations and testing, but the actual excavation or removal of hazardous substances has not yet begun. Any site listed as a brownfield is on the list for a reason. It means the chances of something being discovered during the mandatory environmental assessment stage is quite high. It also may mean there is a greater chance that substances not discovered during assessment may turn up and in far greater numbers once remediation begins. In brief, part of what makes brownfields dangerous are the unknown hazards yet to be discovered.and, the known hazards that are allowed to be left at the site after meeting the lower brownfield cleanup standard. 

 

In Tonawanda, New York, a portion of the old Tonawanda Coke manufacturing facility already designated a Superfund site is being moved to the state brownfield program. A portion of the site is being subdivided for a developer.  They want to construct a project on it and if the property remains a Superfund site the cleanup process would be lengthy and much more costly. Moving the heavily contaminated property to the brownfields program also would take Honeywell, the company responsible for cleanup costs off the hook for more money. Critics say changing the designation of the property doesn’t change the chemicals that already are known to exist and more likely will be discovered. The cleanup should not be shifted to brownfield status to allow a private company to leverage the system for their advantage. So eager are city officials to return a toxic property to tax paying status, they are willing to allow a developer to bypass normal procedures for ensuring the public is protected from these hazardous waste sites before it becomes too late. 

 

It is of extreme importance that you are not lulled into feeling the term “brownfield” means the site is safe. Part of what makes a brownfield dangerous is that quite the opposite may turn out to be true. A brownfield during the active investigation phase may yield the finding of substances equal to the worst Superfund sites out there. Do not allow anyone to tell you a brownfield is safe or low risk until all remediation is completed. Even then, it may still present threats of some level. Very frequently, asbestos, lead, and PCBs, as well as petroleum products like benzene, cadmium, and chromium are found in these brownfields. Just because the hazard is unknown doesn’t make it non-existent.

 

2. Exposure to Hazardous Materials

 

Living near an uncleaned brownfield site may expose you to hazardous materials such as industrial solvents, mercury, asbestos, and paint sludges. As a designated brownfield, the level of contamination would be high enough to create a risk hazardous to human health. In many cases, piles of disposed chemicals may be blown through the area into the neighborhood. Sometimes the site is not protected, so the neighborhood children use it as a play area. In many cases, materials may have leaked into the soil and may be entering the air in your home through the foundation and floors. Sometimes, there are exposed rotting drums of hazardous waste left sitting on the property. 

 

In Washington County, Pennsylvania, in the middle of the county seat there is a contaminated brownfield sitting right in the middle of the residential neighborhood. An old car dealership that  became a body shop has been sitting open to the neighborhood for years. The previous owner walked away from it, turning it over to the county instead of paying back taxes on the polluted land. Petroleum washed off the site during a rainstorm, and an old underground tank out back needed to be removed and the contamination remediated. The brownfield is completely surrounded by residential homes. Authorities have concerns the contaminants have migrated off site and beyond the immediate homes but, offers to test properties nearby have been rejected by the owners. It is unknown if any residents are having any health issues yet from the contaminants. In the meantime, the land still sits, contaminated and open to the neighborhood.  

 

Sometimes brownfields are reclaimed from old contaminated places to be used for recreation and parks. Just because there were some cosmetic changes does not mean anything underneath has changed. In Washington, D.C. an area used as dumping grounds for old landfill holding as much as four million tons of waste has been undergoing a transformation for years into a supposed park for the mostly poor Anacostia section of town. Back through the 1960s, in addition to use as a landfill in the past, toxic dredgings from the nearby Anacostia River were deposited on the land, incinerator ash was dumped, and open burning of huge piles of garbage was allowed. When the landfill closed, more toxic dredgings were piled on the top, and then a layer that people say may have been sewer sludge. People used the park in spite of this. In the 1990s, between two and twenty feet of construction waste started to be dumped on the area, supposedly for the purpose of building up the land to develop athletic fields for the community to use. The waste contained nails, pipes, and rebar. In 2008, a report revealed asbestos and PCBs had been dumped at the park with the construction debris, and the records detailing the origin of where the materials came from are unable to be found. In 2016, environmental testing showed arsenic, lead, PCBs, pesticides, and chemicals found in petroleum wastes in samples taken at the park. 

 

It is far from uncommon to have these brownfield sites unprotected and accessible to anyone wanting to explore. 

 

3. Extent of Contamination

 

Sometimes brownfield sites are old gas stations or dry cleaners. In other cases they are large manufacturing facilities such as steel mills and chemical companies.  Many old industrial buildings illegally dumped solvents on the grounds and buried drums of waste. Sometimes the amount of cleanup could be minimal and contained only to the site. In many cases, we have seen the contamination turn out to be very large and affect many properties in the area. The hazardous materials also may have contaminated wells that serve both private and public water supplies.

 

In Salt Lake City, a dry cleaner contaminated the soil and the runoff from their property, which spread to several neighboring parcels as well. The city wants to approve a redevelopment project for that area, but the current state of the pollution makes it questionable. Instead of removing the contaminated soils, a proposal to contain the toxins is being looked at. Even so, vapor intrusion into the buildings remains a potential hazard as the contamination in the soil rises to the surface. 

 

4. How Clean is Clean? 

 

When the brownfield is cleaned up, how clean is the standard for that specific site? This is how many property owners, polluters, and companies bend around the regulations. Many of these brownfields have been abandoned by their owners due to the enormous costs of cleaning up the toxins. Many businesses interested in using the property want to spend as little as possible to restore the land for industrial use. The standard of clean is much less than if people were living directly on the site.

 

For people living  in a neighborhood mixed with industry, a brownfield site may only need minimal cleanup to be reopened again for industrial purposes, regardless of the people living nearby. The residential houses directly nearby the site are now living with a cleanup only passing the level needed for industrial use. Simply pouring a concrete slab or placing a parking lot barrier over the site is all that is required sometimes, especially in poorer areas.

 

The state and cities saw all this valuable property that was contaminated and looked for some way to turn these lands back into business opportunistic for developers. There were new programs created to help speed this process. Tax credits and special treatment of investments into these properties was offered by the federal government. The creation of the Brownfields Redevelopment Program offered thousands of dollars to do environmental assessments on the properties to determine the extent of contamination. Creation of the program also gave developers a break by allowing them to do less than complete cleanups depending on the intended use. It went one step further too. It covered any liability in the future for the developer, financial institutions and others involved in the project if there was additional hazardous materials discovered or liability for health risks if people became sick or died as a result. In essence it gave developers, states and cities the opportunity to redevelop contaminated property that otherwise nobody would have wanted to take a chance on. The downside is, there are less incentives to protect the health of the people working or living in these places. 

 

Many states created their own State Voluntary Cleanup Program to assist and speed up the cleanup of brownfields to return them to becoming tax generating properties. In most cases the state programs work hand in hand with the EPA to move these cleanups along. Once the cleanup is completed according to agency standards, liability protection is offered to the developer and other parties involved against future issues. 

 

Tony and I have seen mixed-use developments built on brownfield sites that included residential, commercial, and industrial uses. The developers are allowed to use lower clean-up standards where they locate the commercial and industrial portions of the project and can be allowed to construct the residential property on an area needing a higher level of cleanup. Future discoveries of additional hazardous waste on a previously polluted industrial site are more common than the developers like to talk about. 

 

Crestview Station in Austin, Texas is an example of a mixed use brownfields development. The property originally was an industrial site for a chemical research facility. During those fifty years, industrial wastes were land filled and dumped on the site. The Texas Voluntary Cleanup Program allowed the property to be developed into over 1,000 housing units and 150,000 square feet of office and retail space. In spite of the cleanup, a plume of toxic benzene remains onsite and potentially unknown quantities of industrial waste in areas that were not completely excavated or fully tested.

 

5. New Developments

 

The new development may potentially be even worse for the neighborhood and the environment than anything that could be imagined. A cleaned up brownfield that becomes a small strip mall or perhaps a new warehouse is not going to have a negative impact on the neighborhood; perhaps a new office building would even be nice. But, sometimes the development depends on what the town decides. That is the case with residents in Millsboro, Delaware.

 

In Millsboro, Delaware, a former Vlasic Pickle plant designated as a brownfield was redeveloped into a chicken processing plant. Despite finding levels of nitrates, PCE, TCE, lead, and chloroform higher than standards in monitoring wells, the plan was approved for the redevelopment with no remedial action needed to address the pollutants. Monitoring wells was all that was specified. The new manufacturing facility has turned into a nightmare for several of the residents we spoke with, discussed at length in the chapter on factory farms.  

 

6. Residual Hazardous Materials 

 

Many brownfields are not totally cleaned up of all the hazardous wastes located there. The government agencies in charge of the cleanup believe restoring a polluted site back to its original state is usually too costly. Depending on the new use the property is being cleaned up for, they want to clean up as little as possible. A site that will be a new factory will cost much less of a cleanup than a site that may be a shopping center. 

 

People who are employed at the new business operating at the brownfield site may be exposed to volatile toxic chemicals that were never addressed in the cleanup. Because the site was only cleaned up enough to meet the new use, chemicals and pollution allowed to be left behind may seep into the buildings from the soil and foundation. The process is called “soil vapor intrusion” and presents a real threat in many cases.

 

Frequently, any site has had several different businesses operating at different times. There may be a wide assortment of hazardous substances accumulated over the years. You need to do some research on what information is available on the property and what stage of the brownfield restoration process it is in, if any at all. There may be nothing at all to worry about, or you may find out the cost and time needed to remediate the property for your intended use is not going to be a workable situation. 

 

If you find out you are living near a brownfield or believe you may be having health issues related to potentially contaminated sites, you need to contact your state environmental agency. In many cases, they will come out and hear your concerns and possibly do a site assessment. Remember, brownfields are hazardous waste sites, many of which contain unknown quantities of unknown wastes, sitting there leaking into the soil and groundwater as well as into the air. 

 

In spite of a brownfield being redeveloped and supposedly cleaned up, many sites still have chemical contamination. Whether the cleanup consisted of a parking lot to cover it up or another method, the continued existence of the waste presents an ongoing threat to the neighbors. We always recommend a half mile buffer between you and any brownfield, redeveloped or not.