Encyclopedia of Environmental Science and Engineering, Volume I and II

162 BROWNFIELDS

Some of these principles have become engineering practice

in the “Standard for Process of Sustainable Brownfields

Redevelopment” from the ASTM.

In association with the forums, the Chicago Brownfield

Initiative began with a pilot cleanup and redevelopment pro-

gram in 1993. The Chicago Department of Environmental

Protection, in partnership with the mayor’s office and

the Chicago Departments of Planning and Development,

Buildings, and Law, coordinated the brownfields pilot pro-

gram. The pilot program involved the cleanup up of five

abandoned polluted industrial sites and initiated redevelop-

ment. The five pilots resulted in new construction activity

and the creation of jobs. The city’s experience with these

sites became a national model for continued innovation at

large-scale cleanups.

Chicago shared its experiences by hosting another

brownfield forum to discuss the legal, financial, and ethi-

cal issues related to urban disinvestments. The forum, which

included business leaders, industrialists, environmentalists,

bankers, regulators, and city officials, generated a list of rec-

ommended actions to facilitate brownfield cleanups and rede-

velopments. Cities across the United States began to use the

successful Chicago-recommended actions. Chicago revisited

its forum recommendation in late 1997 to assess local and

national progress. This conference increased national atten-

tion and validated the work since the first conference. More

urban areas took the model and made it theirs.

One city that took the model and made it theirs is St. Louis,

Missouri. St. Louis, like many older cities, had deteriorated

commercial districts that imposed a blighting effect on sur-

rounding residential neighborhoods. St. Louis began one of

the earliest brownfields programs in the mid-1990s. By 2000,

St. Louis had cleaned up many sites using the brownfields

approach. Mayor Freeman Bosley detailed the experiences

at several sites in congressional testimony. In one targeted

area, the city paid to assemble, clear, and clean a corner site

critical to the shopping district’s viability. According to the

mayor, the owners of this area had not been able to command

sufficient rent to maintain their property. When cleanup was

accomplished, a private company invested in what is now a

thriving commercial business district that provides employ-

ment, generates sales, and helps to attract patrons to other

retail and eating establishments in the area.

On May 13, 1997, Vice President Al Gore announced the

Brownfields National Partnership Action Agenda (National

Partnership), outlining the EPA’s activities and future plans to

help states and communities implement and realize the ben-

efits of the brownfields initiative. The National Partnership

brings together federal agencies to address brownfield clean-

ups and redevelopments in a more coordinated approach.

AGENCIES, CITIES, AND UNIVERSITIES INVOLVED

IN BROWNFIELDS

The other seven federal agencies involved are: the

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD),

the Department of Transportation (DOT), the General Services

Administration (GSA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA), the Department of Health and

Human Services (DHHS), the Department of Labor (DOL),

and the Department of Energy (DOE). HUD administers the

Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI) as

the key competitive grant program to stimulate and promote

economic- and community-development activities under

Section 108(q) of the Housing and Community Development

Act of 1974. Through BEDI, HUD administers these grants

to stimulate local governments and private-sector parties

to redevelop or continue phased redevelopment efforts on

brownfield sites where environmental conditions are known

and redevelopment plans exist. The DOT has multiple

approaches to support transportation-related brownfields by

funding cleanups as part of its infrastructure development,

work with other agencies on brownfields for transportation-

related uses, encourage consideration of transportation access

in redevelopment planning, and identify policies that dis-

courage transportation-related brownfields redevelopment.

With thousands of federal properties located throughout the

country, the GSA is partnering with communities to ensure

that underutilized federal properties are an active component

in the redevelopment of our nation’s urban centers. NOAA

has a signed agreement with the EPA to lay the groundwork

for revitalizing aging port-city waterfronts. The DHHS spec-

ifies essential services to be provided by its health-related

agencies and the larger public-health community that must

be applied to each brownfields project to assure public-health

protection. The DOL, through its Office of Environmental

Management, Office of Intergovernmental and Public

Accountability, has developed an electronic access (Internet-

based) system to provide technical assistance and increase

community members’ capacity to understand and resolve

environmental issues related to brownfields. The DOE

provides technical assistance in brownfield efforts from its

Headquarters Program Offices and the National Laboratories

and Technology Centers.

Many major urban areas, through both cities and coun-

ties, have associated with the federal brownfields, and some

have continued their own brownfields efforts. Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, is a city that develops brownfields innovations

in association with Carnegie Mellon University while it contin-

ues to work with the EPA. Another city with a strong university

affiliation is Cincinnati, Ohio, where collaboration with the

University of Cincinnati provides training and environmental-

justice support and broadens community affiliations.

COMMON AND LEGAL DEFINITIONS

The EPA and other environmental- and health-protection agen-

cies base their regulations and implementation on science. Most

often they adapt technical definitions that are measurable and

science-based into regulations. The terms surrounding brown-

fields do not follow this pattern. Brownfields definitions bring

a community-based sensibility. The complexity and plasticity

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