By Ted Fischer, Brett Rosenberg, Virak Kchao, and Judy Sheahan
May 19, 2008

Detroit hosted the 2008 EPA Brownfields Conference May 5-7. The meeting was attended by over 5,000 mayors, city staff, private developers, and brownfield experts from throughout the world.

Brownfields are defined as abandoned or underutilized properties whose redevelopment is hindered by either real or perceived environmental contamination. The Government Accountability Office estimates there are between 400-600,000 brownfield properties throughout the United States.

The Brownfields conference is a three-day meeting that brings together industry insiders, city planners, mayors and the business community to discuss the importance of redeveloping Brownfield sites and preserving green space. Sessions and presentations included affordable housing, financing options, sustainable development, remediation and redevelopment, environmental insurance, and new economic investment. Meeting materials can be located at the website www.brownfields2008.org.

How Brownfields translate to a global economy and an ever changing marketplace was a question addressed during the 2008 Brownfields Conference. This session was geared toward educating conference attendees on international policies and how other countries redevelop their properties. Each country shared best practices on sustainability, green technology, remediation practices, institutional controls and what Brownfield’s are worth to their growing communities.

The revitalization of Brownfields attracts attention on a global scale from policy makers and practitioners. The session took a look at other countries and how they view their sites. Baofeng Li, of the school of architecture and urban planning in Huazhong, China spoke to attendees about how there is no specific translation for Brownfield’s in the Chinese language so it was harder to explain to residents and policy makers why it is so important to continue the work of cleaning up contaminated sites. The city of Wuhan, which contains eight million people over 8,494 square kilometers and has 3,500 years of history, was a very important part of his best practice presentation. 1861 marked the first year a factory opened within the city limits and today the city is running low on space and factories have moved further out from the city center requiring the clean-up and redevelopment of former factory sites. Wan Ke Run Park was an example of an old textile factory that had been transformed into residents and artist lofts in the heart of Wuhan. The Chinese government pays for public projects but there is really not a lot of extra funds that are available for construction of these facilities.

Uwe Ferber of Projektgruppe Stadt - Entwicklung in Germany and Paul Nathanail from the University of Nottingham of the United Kingdom (UK) were also panelists on the discussion of Brownfield Policy Agenda’s Abroad. Now considered as collaborators due to the creation of the European Union, both Germany and the UK have similar views on how Brownfield redevelopment should be handled. In both cases laws have been passed to protect greenfields by requiring corporations to exhaust all efforts to develop on a brownfield site before choosing green. These laws have created a national strategy for sustainable development and have actively worked to protect their nation’s greenfields. REFINA is “Research for the Reduction of Land Consumption and for Sustainable Land Management” funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is part of the German National Strategy for Sustainable Development. REFINA currently has 45 different projects in the process of redevelopment or remediation.

In the UK, policy is simply based on the ideal that places should be created for people without the harm or destruction of nature. The UK currently provides tax breaks and incentives for businesses to build on Brownfield sites along with laws that protect the current level of greenfields. Germany and the UK plus many more EU countries have joined CABERNET, (Concerted Action on Brownfield and Economic Regeneration Network) is the European Expert Network addressing the complex multi-stakeholder issues that are raised by Brownfield regeneration. To learn more, visit the website http://www.cabernet.org.uk

Among the numerous sessions at the 2008 National Brownfields Conference in Detroit, a recurring theme involved “green” infrastructure. Reviving former brownfields sites has long been heralded as an integral part of overall downtown or area redevelopment plans; when integrated with green infrastructure, additional benefits often include restored or enhanced river and other habitat, better public space amenities and improved city finances through higher property values and “green collar” jobs. From rooftop gardens to innovations in stormwater management parks, the obvious marriage of brownfields redevelopment projects with the environmental benefits of green infrastructure enjoyed receptive audiences. Several speakers provided real world and theoretical examples throughout the conference.

One large scale redevelopment project, on the former site of Denver’s Stapleton Airport, involves “daylighting” a stream, whereby a formerly buried creek was unearthed, so to speak, and rehabilitated to its former, more natural state. The revived creek provides wildlife habitat, better overall water quality through improved stormwater runoff capacity and management, and a valuable environmental amenity for future residents of the soon to be constructed neighborhood.

Another example that received in-depth review was the 140 acre Milwaukee Roads site and Menomonee Valley Stormwater Park, a portion of the 1,200 acre Menomonee Valley redevelopment project in Milwaukee. The site, formerly the home of an abandoned rail yard and other industrial uses, is now an office park that has integrated a series of natural areas and open spaces landscaped with swales and native vegetation that will effectively filter stormwater as it heads toward the Menomonee River and Lake Michigan. The redevelopment also reconnects two neighborhoods that had been separated by the previous uses, through sidewalks, bridges and open space. The $20 million project was partially funded through $3 million in federal EPA grants; much of the remaining funding was derived through tax increment financing.

Multiple sessions were held throughout the Brownfields ‘08 conference regarding the topics of green jobs and job training in brownfields. As job training begins to gain momentum in recent years, it has become an integral part in discussions in the redevelopment of brownfields. These newly formed jobs are utilized as a way to bring people from primarily minority, low-income families to gain the fundamental knowledge to obtain quality environmental jobs.

Prior to the main sessions of Brownfields 08, an Environmental Justice Caucus was held to discuss the green economy, public health, and social justices. The caucus was a way to relate green jobs with sustainability along with improving a communities overall wellbeing by redeveloping brownfields. Speakers with expertise in the area from a variety of backgrounds were able to share their experiences on implementing workforce development programs with the conference attendees. Some programs that were used as an example in the caucus were the Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, Office of Applied Innovations, and the Center for Construction Research and Training.

A couple of sessions were held during the conference that highlighted a few programs specifically for its continuing success in brownfields job training. One program coming from Port Arthur (TX) showed how workforce development could then lead to improve economic development. The program discussed what successes were made through partnerships, community outreach, recruitment, and job placement. But also involving lessons learned through the process and how it could be incorporated to other communities. Winston-Salem Earth Movements also proved to be another program exemplifying the goal of trying to achieve a sustainable brownfields job training program. Its key to success is again reiterated by its ability to making good partnerships with local environmental practitioners, local colleges, and community organizations has led the program to having high retention rates, job placement and giving graduates good living wages.

Judy Sheahan of the Conference of Mayors staff, Charlie Bartsch of ICF International, Evans Paull of the Northeast Midwest Institute, and Ken Brown of the Ferguson Group provided meeting participants with a brownfields legislative update. These speakers are members of the Brownfields Coalition, which is made up of over 20 organizations that share an interest in encouraging the redevelopment of brownfield properties.

The speakers discussed at length the Coalition’s recommendations for the reauthorization of the Brownfields law. Some of these recommendations include increasing appropriation levels and individual grant amounts, creating multi-purpose grants for cities to use for assessments and cleanups, encouraging institutional controls to assure the continued safe use of redeveloped brownfield properties, funding to assist with site preparation and cleanup, and tools to encourage owners of brownfield properties to redevelop them.

The speakers said that Representatives Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX) and Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar (MN) have introduced H.R. 5336, the Brownfields Reauthorization Act of 2008, and includes some of the Coalition’s recommendations. Currently there are Senators who are also considering introducing a reauthorization bill in the near future.

The 2008 Brownfield Survey Publication that features the results of the 2007 Brownfield’s survey was released in January and is now available for download from the website: http://www.usmayors.org/76thWinterMeeting/release_012408b_report.pdf

Arriving soon via mail will be the 2008 survey questionnaire. Once again the survey can be filled out online or submitted via fax.