Notes from the meeting held on

Wednesday, July 18, 2001

10^th Floor DOT Training Room

State Office Building, Binghamton, NY

Present: Stacy Merola, Joanna Corey, Ken Kamlet (Chair), Frank Evangelisti, Cindy Westerman, Joe Graney, and Ron Brink. Guest Experts: Joe Moody (Town of Union), Dee Golazeski (Village of Johnson City), Joel Boyd (City of Binghamton), Bob Murphy (O’Connor, Gacioch), Tom Suozzo (DEC), Greg V. Lesniak (Satterthwaite), Mary Brophy (NYS DOT). AWE: Paul Thompson, Chip McElwee, Chris Engler,

1. The meeting convened at 4:05 p.m. On a motion from Joe Graney, seconded by Ron Brink, the minutes from the last two meeting (4/18/01 and 5/23/01) were approved as submitted.

2. A new guest expert, Joel Boyd, newly appointed City of Binghamton Assistant Director of Economic Development, was welcomed. The Chair expressed the Subcommittee’s gratification that the City had provided an official representative. It was later learned that Mr. Boyd is also conversant with the use of MS Access databases.

Member Items of Interest: (a) Stacy distributed copies of a number of handouts previously provided to the EMC by Tom Suozzo and (in one case) Lou Alexander concerning DEC’s various programs for controlling hazardous substance contamination, including information on the Governor’s Superfund reform proposals. (b) She also passed out copies of other materials relating to Pennsylvania’s Land Recycling Program, and an article by Donna Thomas about a program at Wilkes University in Luzerne County, PA, in which senior environmental engineering students do “windshield reconnaissances” to catalog empty lots, abandoned gas stations, and dry cleaners to add to the Luzerne-Lackawanna County Brownfields Development Opportunities Task Force’s inventory. (c) Greg Lesniak indicated that he was very familiar with Pennsylvania’s brownfields program and would be happy to make a presentation to the subcommittee at a future meeting—perhaps focusing on the Hallstead Remediation project in neighboring Susquehanna County, PA. (d) Stacy informed the group that the next round of Transportation Enhancement Program projects was coming up, with a November 1, 2001 application deadline. She described several Broome County projects funded under previous iterations of this program. BMTS will be holding a Workshop on funding opportunities under this program on August 7^th at 1 pm on the 6^th floor of the County Office Building. (e) The Chairman called the group’s attention to a June 28, 2001 article in the Press & Sun-Bulletin on plans announced by the Governor to build a new SUNY brownfield remediation training and research center on the 142-acre Harbor Point contaminated manufactured gas plant site now owned by Niagara Mohawk near the Mohawk River in North Utica. The Chairman observed that this initiative might suggest beneficial uses for the much smaller manufactured gas plant sites owned by NYSEG in the Binghamton area. (f) In light of the upcoming October deadline for submittal of applications for an EPA Brownfields Assessment Pilot Program grant , which EPA Region II has encouraged Broome County to pursue, the Chairman gave examples from an EPA website of past Brownfield Pilot Program “Success Stories.” These included: Bridgeport Connecticut (based on an assessment project that evaluated the former Jenkins Valve Company site, located in the city’s main gateway, the Zurich Re Corporation invested $11 million to clean up and redevelop this site); Emeryville, CA (targeted 10 sites totaling more than 180 acres for cleanup and redevelopment; the Pilot project facilitated a plan between the city and a development corporation to redevelop an abandoned rail yard; ~100 construction workers have been hired to construct 200 units of residential housing); Trenton, NJ (as a result of the Pilot, Phytotech, a research corporation developing innovative remediation methods, approached the city about conducting a demonstration cleanup project using “phytoremediation” to clean up the Gould National Battery site; initial tests demonstrated the ability of Indian Mustard plants to reduce lead levels in soils); Birmingham, AL (initiative to stimulate the development of a 150-acre industrial park, and create over 2,000 jobs, within a 900-acre industrial area in which nearly 40 percent of a formerly active property now lies vacant); and Oregon Mills, OR (the Pilot program grant jump-started the City of Astoria’s cooperative effort with Oregon DEQ, ECOTRUST, and the community to clean up the City’s abandoned mill sites and transform them into thriving waterfront properties).

3. Future direction of the subcommittee: Stacy introduced this topic by noting that the Executive Committee, at its May meeting, had discussed (at the behest of Chris Engler) the progress and status of the Brownfields Subcommittee—just as it periodically does for all other EMC initiatives. While the progress of the Subcommittee was noted and commended, the issue was raised as to whether the EMC would be the best home for this group when the time came for the group’s recommendations to be implemented. The question was posed as to whether it would make more sense to house the group within an entity like the Economic Development Council—given the group’s economic redevelopment thrust. Stacy indicated that, after another meeting of the Executive Committee in June in which Ken (as Chairman of the Brownfields Subcommittee) was invited to participate, and a more recent meeting with the Economic Development Council, it was decided to continue the present placement of the Brownfields Subcommittee within EMC. Stacy indicated that a new EMC brochure would make reference to the subcommittee and that, similar to other EMC components, the meetings of the subcommittee will be regularized—the third Wednesday of each month. It was also reported by Stacy and Frank that a Planning Department summer intern was hard at work adding information to the Brownfields database, and that Planning Commissioner Julie Sweet had had a productive meeting with Dr. John Frazier of the SUNY Geography Department concerning a potential Fall intern for the Brownfields subcommittee.

It was noted that what Julie needed to give to Dr. Frazier to pass on to intern candidates was a “scope of work” setting forth a discrete project the intern would be called upon to perform.

Joe Graney mentioned, as a factor that might be considered to have a bearing on where the Brownfields group should be housed, is that the Chairman’s status as an employee of the Newman Development Group, which frequently develops shopping centers on former industrial or commercial sites that could be considered brownfields, could be viewed as an apparent conflict of interest (i.e., that might cause the Brownfields Subcommittee to give high rankings to some sites and low rankings to others). (Presumably, this would be an argument for moving the brownfields group to an economic development-oriented body, like the EDC.) Bob Murphy noted that this merely attested to the Chairman’s practical expertise in brownfields, and that a developer or owner seeking to redevelop a brownfield site would not necessarily want that site included on the Subcommittee’s Candidate Site List, much less near the top of the list. He cited the Anitec Site (#11) as an example. His client, Brandenburg, Inc., which owns the site, is really not anxious to have the site included on our Candidate List.

The Chairman assured the group that there were absolutely no “hidden agendas” on his part. He has included sites on the list strictly on the basis of whether they meet the definition of brownfields and may have redevelopment potential—wholly without regard to any potential interest in the site by Newman Development Group. If the Newman Group had an interest in developing a particular brownfields site, it would probably be to the firm’s advantage to not focus attention on such a site in order to eliminate potential competition. The list also contains sites like the CFJ Site (#4) in Johnson City which the Newman Group once had a strong interest in developing, but which could not be acquired from the owner on acceptable terms. It remains one of the County’s premier brownfield sites—which, hopefully, will attract the interest of another developer.

Stacy made the comment that the fact that the current Chairman of the Economic Development Council (EDC), Marc Newman, is the employer of the Chairman of the Brownfields Subcommittee might itself be perceived as creating some sort of conflict if the Brownfields Subcommittee were to be relocated to the EDC.

The Chairman raised the issue, which has been debated within the EMC, as to whether we should be pressing for a prioritized list of candidate sites for redevelopment, as opposed to a more comprehensive list of brownfield sites deserving of attention. Bob Murphy commented that “we are not here to fix half-acre sites” and that “numbering [i.e., ranking] sites gives people a focus.” Joe Graney argued that we shouldn’t rank the sites, but should merely present an alphabetized list. He expressed concern that a numerical ranking would mislead people into thinking that two sites separated by a few ranking numbers differed substantially in their suitability or desirability for redevelopment. The Chairman noted that, when this issue had come up previously the Subcommittee had decided to not discard any sites, but to preserve in a database all information concerning any site considered by the group. He also indicated that he had proposed, with apparent support from the group, for reasons similar to those raised by Joe, to merely ranks sites qualitatively as High, Medium, and Low priority candidates—rather than attempting to assign mathematically precise numerical rankings.

The Chairman informed the group of a suggestion made by Chip McElwee which might provide a middle ground acceptable to all members of the group and to the EMC. Chip’s proposal was that we rank sites separately, based on such things as their suitability for economic redevelopment on the one hand and their environmental contamination status on the other. Decisionmakers would then be free to select sites based on the desired mix of factors. The Chairman presented one such approach, based on the tabulation of “Potential Site Ranking Criteria” (11/16/00), prepared on the basis of approaches employed by various EPA brownfield pilot program communities throughout the U.S. The 25 factors called out in this table were found to fall into three broad clusters: Land Use Planning and Development considerations; Legal and Financial factors; and Environmental and Public Health factors. The Chairman distributed a matrix format for separately evaluating sites based on criteria falling into each of these categories. He stated that, although he initially favored a single rank-ordering of candidate sites, he had evolved to the view that something akin to the three-pronged approach would be most appropriate. The virtues of this approach are that it would (a) not give the misleading impression of mathematical precision in the ranking of sites; (b) preserve underlying data that might be useful in a variety of contexts; and (c) leave it up to decisionmakers to select sites based on those considerations they deem most relevant and appropriate.

Mary Brophy (DOT) indicated that she strongly supported this three-pronged approach. Tom Suozzo (DEC) noted that having a comprehensive list is a good thing and that it was possible to have a comprehensive list, but also have a sublist that one could move forward on.

Cindy made the point that she could “not really see anything wrong with what we’ve done” so far. There appeared to be a consensus within the group that the three-pronged approach that had been presented was an appropriate way to proceed—at least for the time being.

The Chairman commented that sites “screened off” of the candidate list thus far are primarily duplicates (e.g., two identical sites originally included under different names). The only other sites removed so far from the priority list are those deemed too small (given the zoning and land use setting) for meaningful redevelopment and/or sites with active current uses, where there is no indication the owner is interested in the sale or redevelopment of the property. Although some members disagreed, the Chairman argued that the only sites “dropped” from the list to date are those where it is pretty clear that they have little or no redevelopment potential. In any event, all such sites have been retained (along with all available data) in the group’s raw Brownfields Database.

As an illustration of the fact that some initial judgments can often be easily made about candidate sites, the Chairman referred to information he recently assembled, with the assistance of the Vestal Town Engineer, about potential brownfield sites in Vestal. One large site—The Neil Guiles Site at 443 Foster Road (##27 and 51)—which had been contaminated by the land application of contaminated sewage sludge, would have limited industrial or commercial redevelopment potential (even though BCHD regards the contamination problem to be essentially resolved—as long a new user doesn’t plant edible crops there) because it is in a Rural Residential (RR zone) area in South Vestal, far removed from highway access and lacking in public water, sewer, or natural gas service. Another site, the Curcio Printing Plant at 513 Prentice Road (#25), although industrially zoned, located a short distance (about 0.5-mile) from Old Vestal Road, and served by public water (but not public sewer), also seems a poor candidate for redevelopment because it is only about 0.9-acre in size and is currently part of a Town –designated Critical Environmental Area (CEA). On the other hand, Murphy’s Sand & Gravel Pit at 3129 Old Vestal Road, although it consists of a relatively small tax map parcel, is one of numerous contiguous Industrial-zoned properties owned by Robert Murphy (or a related entity, such as Barney & Dickenson), which together may total as much as 400 acres. These sites generally have fair to good highway access and some have access to public water and/or public sewer. The major impediment to beneficially redeveloping some or all of these properties is that many of them were classified by the Town as a Critical Environmental Area. However, according to the Town Engineer, this designation was established by the Town Board some years ago—not based on a considered judgment that the area was environmentally sensitive and needed protection, but out of a desire to prevent one entrepreneur from developing a small computer-recycling facility. It may be appropriate as part of the pending Vestal comprehensive plan update to have the Town’s consultant (Saratoga Associates) reassess the appropriateness of the existing CEA designations, along with evaluating whether any other areas in the Town would be more worthy of such a designation.

4. Status Reports: Frank informed the group that the County’s GIS (Geographical Information System) had been updated to include “layers” for such things as Zoning, Water Districts, and Empire Zones. That should make it even more useful and relevant to the work of the Brownfields Subcommittee.

The Planning Department’s summer intern has been correcting and adding data to our Brownfields database, including new data provided by the Chairman on potential sites located in the Town of Vestal. The MS Access database template that is being used is that developed by Frank and presented to the group in February or March. Frank agreed that once the relevant data is stored in the database, it would not be a difficult matter to organize the data in accordance with the three-pronged approach. All that would be required is to design appropriate Access “report” formats to coincide with each desired grouping of data.

5. Action Items: A Scope of Work needs to be developed for a potential Brownfields Subcommittee intern. This Scope needs to be provided to Julie Sweet to convey to Dr. Frazier at Binghamton University. The Chairman volunteered to put a draft together for review by Joe Graney and Frank Evangelisti. It was agreed that the Scope of Work will largely entail compiling and incorporating relevant data into a three-pronged brownfields database and perfecting an MS Access database to accommodate such data.

Frank asked the Chairman to provide him a copy of the brownfields database he separately maintains. (This has been done electronically.)

Greg Lesniak will prepare a presentation (most likely for the September meeting) comparing Pennsylvania’s Land Recycling Program to the updated New York Brownfields Program proposed by Governor Pataki.

6. Next Meeting: The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 15th at 4:30 p.m.

The meeting adjourned at approximately 5:45 p.m.

Recorder, Ken Kamlet

7/23/01

Editor, Stacy Merola