164 BROWNFIELDS
environmental impact, and by offering incentives for certain
desirable types of development, including brownfields. EJ
policies go beyond brownfields. However, brownfields are
an effective means for advancing EJ principles.
When HUD administers brownfields grants, it has EJ
requirements. HUD works with community organizations,
the private sector, local and state governments, and other
federal agencies to provide equitable reinvestment in com-
munities with fair employment opportunities. Other agen-
cies, such as the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease
Registry’s Office of Urban Affairs, are actively involved in
issues such as public-health issues that are linked to EJ.
Bankers make lending decisions that affect brown-
fields. Initially, bankers chose to lend on greenfields, rather
than brownfields, because brownfields bring unpredictable
expense and liability—this despite the fact that greenfields
may be more expensive because of the infrastructure that
needs to be built. The unpredictable expense and liability
of brownfields came from the wide variability in cleanup
and associated legal costs. Without some predictability
for cleanup and liability costs, banks were biased toward
the more predictable greenfields without infrastructures,
like rail connections, sewer, water, electricity, and nearby
communities to provide. The EPA’s brownfield program
brought predictability through its multiagency collabora-
tive approach. This approach, combined with funding, often
overcame the reluctance of bankers to fund the develop-
ment of brownfields. Additionally, bankers rely on techni-
cal standards developed by other fields to make decisions.
With the engineering standards that have been developed in
the 1990s such as the “Standard for Process of Sustainable
Brownfields Redevelopment” from the ASTM, banks have
reliable technical standards. Finally, banks are members of
the community and are positively influenced by brownfields
because of the community support and process.
From the success of the brownfield cleanups, an associated
movement to clean up grayfields has developed. “Grayfields”
are defined as blighted or obsolete buildings sitting on land
that is not necessarily contaminated. Grayfields range from
aging shopping malls in the suburbs to mining reclamation
across the Pennsylvania countryside. Many regions hope to
have grayfield successes using some of the partnerships and
methods developed by brownfield programs.SEATTLE AND KING COUNTY CASE STUDYCase studies are written discussions of a topic containing an
applied example of the topic. Case studies are used in legal,
business, and environmental studies. There are many case
studies to select from, because from 1993 to 2000, the EPA
has provided over $250 million in brownfields funding in the
form of grants and loans. More that 50 brownfield-related
job-training and redevelopment demonstration projects have
been funded. Projects have ranged from innovative test pilots
for heavily contaminated areas in large cities to small com-
munities with a large brownfields.The case study below discusses a brownfield showcase
community initiative in Seattle, Washington, that uses dif-
fering levels of technology and different levels of private–
public cooperation at several sites. The Seattle and King
County Brownfields Initiative was one of the 11 initially
funded under the EPA Brownfields Showcase Communities
Initiative. The funding comes through the King County and
Seattle Offices of Economic Development and has been
renewed because of a track record of successes.
This initiative has two tracks. First, several small busi-
nesses have received assistance from the brownfields pro-
gram that has enabled them to return contaminated industrial
properties to productive businesses. Second, area-wide proj-
ects have made cleanups more attainable for all businesses
under their umbrellas.
One of the businesses receiving funding was an auto-
wrecking yard, All City Wrecking, that has been cleaned up
and redeveloped as a neighborhood store and gas station. This
2-acre site supported a family-owned auto wrecking yard for
30 years. As the owners neared retirement, they ceased oper-
ating their business with the hopes of selling their property.
The presence of contamination posed challenges to that sale.
The site was contaminated with oil, petroleum products, and
heavy metals. The Environmental Extension Service (EES),
a contractor under the grant, was able to help this business
overcome the difficulties of addressing the contamination.
The EES provided free assistance at every stage of the
project. The EES helped the owners properly dispose of
liquid wastes on the site, and obtained a local matching grant
to defray disposal costs. The EES then assisted in selecting
and hiring consultants to perform both the assessment and
cleanup on the property, reviewed and interpreted consultant
reports for the owners, and made recommendations for how
to proceed with assessment and cleanup. Within approxi-
mately 8 months, the All City Wrecking site underwent
environmental testing, cleanup, and compliance monitoring.
This process ended with a “No Further Action” designation
by the Washington Department of Ecology and has enabled
this property to be sold, redeveloped, and recycled for a
new productive use as a neighborhood store and gas station.
There were many such cleanups that were facilitated by the
umbrella projects described below.
Two wide-ranging projects facilitated the cleanup of
all properties in their respective ranges. The largest,
Washington’s newly established risk-based cleanup stan-
dards for total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), was state-
wide. The other project was the localized Duwamish
Corridor Groundwater Study. This study characterized the
groundwater in a heavily industrial area that has been cre-
ated with material dredged from the river and washed from
the hills and documented that the groundwater was not a
drinking-water aquifer. Both of these government efforts
had the effect of streamlining projects and reducing the
cleanup costs. The more flexible TPH cleanup standards
enabled this project to clean the soil up to a commercial,
rather than a residential, cleanup level. The groundwater
study, funded by King County from state and federal grants,C002_002_r03.indd 164C002_002_r03.indd 164 11/18/2005 10:16:21 AM11/18/2005 10:16:21 AM