| Articles and Books |
| Case Studies |
| EPA Dialogs & Discussions |
| News |
| Press Releases |
| Standard Forms |
| White Papers |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||
 |
| Thank you for subscribing to Brownfields Weekly |
|
April 11, 2002 THIS WEEK:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit Brownfields.com's Articles & Books page for detailed print and online resources on brownfields real estate transactions, redevelopment, financing, insurance, and liability. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Multi-Agency Great Lakes Restoration
Strategy Announced MUSKEGON, Michigan - The Great Lakes U.S. Policy Committee, a broad partnership including federal, state, and tribal agencies, announced on April 2 an ambitious new plan to protect and restore the Great Lakes. "Great Lakes Strategy 2002 - A Plan for the New Millennium" addresses the most serious problems in the lakes, like contaminated sediments, invasive species, loss of habitat and fish that are unsafe to eat. The strategy establishes several ambitious goals, including cleaning up all 31 polluted harbors on the U.S. side of the lakes, designated as "areas of concern," by 2025; reducing concentrations of PCBs in lake trout and walleye by 25 percent in five years; and having 90 percent of Great Lakes beaches clean enough to be open 95 percent of the season by the end of the decade. "The Great Lakes are American treasures - home to residents from 8 states and home away from home for vacationers and visitors from across the country," Administrator Whitman said. "The Great Lakes Strategy, and the aggressive goals it sets, will provide a framework for specific actions to protect and restore the lakes over the next several years." The strategy was created by the U.S. Policy Committee, a partnership of senior environmental officials from federal, state and tribal agencies. In addition to EPA, the committee has representatives from the eight Great Lakes states, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. Forest Service, Great Lakes Fishery Commission and more than 30 tribal governments. The Great Lakes are the largest body of fresh water in the world, supplying drinking water to more than 30 million people. There are more than 600 beaches on its U.S. shores. For more on the Great Lakes Strategy 2002, please visit: http://www.epa.gov/grtlakes/gls. HUD Awards $1M for Future Site of
Social Service Center VACAVILLE, California - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has approved $1 million in loan guarantee assistance to help build a new social service center in Vacaville, California, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez announced. The City of Vacaville, located between Oakland and Sacramento, will use the $1 million in Section 108 loan guarantees with a previously announced grant of $250,000 from HUD to acquire land and prepare a brownfield site for the planned social service center. The $250,000 Economic Development Initiative (EDI) grant funds will be used to assist with acquisition and to abate brownfield conditions on the site. "The new construction will bring jobs, and the completed social service center will bring better service to Vacaville area residents," said Secretary Martinez. The new center will consolidate resident services, now located throughout the city, including the administration of a local homeless shelter. The City expects the completed facility to be more cost effective, efficient and more convenient than that of the existing services located at dispersed sites. In addition to the funding provided by HUD, the City of Vacaville will utilize an additional $899,200 in other public funds, for a total project cost of approximately $2.3 million. Plan to Attend "Contaminated Property
Transactions: Sponsored by RTM Communications, plan to attend "Contaminated Property Transactions" for high-level presentations, speakers, and discussions on Getting the Deals Done. Attendees will hear case studies of successful financings and redevelopments of environmentally impaired real estate assets, EPA perspectives on contaminated property transactions, detail information on the Superfund and RCRA reforms affecting the redevelopment of Federal and private sites and much more. For more information on this conference, a list of speakers, and to register,
please visit: Dry Cleaner to Install "Clean" Machines under Innovative Settlement NEW YORK, New York - In settlement with the U.S. EPA of charges it mismanaged hazardous wastes containing the dry cleaning chemical "perc," White-Sun Cleaners Corporation and its owner, Insun Yun, will pay a $10,800 cash penalty and make improvements at the dry cleaning facility that will benefit the environment. The improvements, made possible through an innovative EPA settlement policy, will cost the company approximately $60,000 over three years. EPA inspected White-Sun's facility in Long Island City in August 2000 and found conditions that violated both federal and state hazardous waste regulations. Among them: 19 improperly-labeled containers holding perchloroethylene (perc) waste, many of which were open; containers, equipment, walls and floors that were visibly contaminated with perc waste; and a dry cleaning machine that was leaking sludge containing perc. Perc, also known as tetrachloroethylene, is the most widely-used chemical in the dry cleaning industry. It is also a probable human carcinogen, and can have other significant negative health effects in people. EPA charged White-Sun with several counts of violating regulations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the federal hazardous waste law, and of violating the EPA authorized state regulations. White-Sun opted to undertake a Supplemental Environmental Project made possible through an innovative EPA policy that gives companies settling with the agency on certain violations the option to undertake projects that will benefit human health and the environment. The Long Island City dry cleaner will install a new alternate solvent dry cleaning machine that uses a hydrocarbon solvent instead of perc. The proposed hydrocarbon solvent is environmentally friendly and less toxic than perc. The machine using the alternate solvent will be installed after approval by the New York City Fire Department (FDNY). White-Sun will install the alternate solvent dry cleaning machine within a year of its approval by the FDNY and operate it for at least three years. The company also agreed to make the new machine available for viewing by other members of the dry cleaning community, to publicize its use of the alternate solvent machine and to provide information about the technology when requested. For more information on the remediation of dry cleaning sites, visit the State Coalition for Remediation of Drycleaners: http://www.drycleancoalition.org/state.cfm. Shuttered Mill Site Spurs a Small
Town Resurrection EPA New England has spent nearly $1.2 billion on its 110 National Priorities List (NPL) sites, most of it on cleanups that are underway on three-quarters of those sites. But New England's Superfund program isn't just about restoring and remediating sites -- it's also about putting them back to reuse. One intriguing New England project is in Corinna, Maine, a small town about 50 miles north of Augusta. In 1996, Corinna's future was darkened by the shutdown of Eastland Woolen Mill, a large mill complex that for decades dominated the town center and provided virtually all of the local jobs. As it turned out, the mill property also had serious environmental problems, a major impediment to the town's future economic revival. Listed as a Superfund site in 1999, EPA has spent more than $30 million on cleanup activities there. The work included demolishing the 250,000-square-foot mill and the Main Street bridge, and diverting Main Street and the East Branch of the Sebasticook River so that 75,000 cubic yards of contaminated soils could be excavated. Just as important, EPA gave the town an $82,500 Superfund Redevelopment Grant to develop an economic recovery plan. Developed in close collaboration between EPA, architects, residents and town leaders, the plan includes a redesigned village center with mixed-use commercial and residential zoning, riverfront walking paths and a new recreational trail bridge for bikers and snowmobilers. "We're looking to transform Corinna from a mill town to a New England village with lots of walking opportunities, little shops and wildlife areas," said Town Manager Judy Doore, who spearheaded the reuse effort. Doore says the goal of the reuse plan is to attract travelers driving to Moosehead Lake. "We'd like to be the place where people stop to take a break before embarking on the final one-and-a-half hours to Moosehead," she said. On Saturday, March 9, the reuse plan was approved unanimously -- 62 to 0 -- at Corinna's annual town meeting. "It was a slam dunk," said one Town Hall worker.
|