Notes from the meeting held on Wednesday, March 14, 2001

5^th Floor Planning Department Conference Room

Edwin L. Crawford County Office Building, Binghamton, NY

Present: Stacy Merola, Ron Brink, Ken Kamlet (Chair), Chip McElwee, Joe Graney, Frank Evangelisti, Paul Thompson, Cindy Westerman, Michael Clugston (intern). Guest Experts: Tom Suozzo (NYS DEC), Joe Moody (Town of Union), Dee Golazeski (Johnson City).

1. The meeting convened at 4:30 p.m.

2. Approval of Minutes: The minutes of February 14th were approved as drafted.

Member Items of Interest: Stacy distributed an updated Roster (dated 3/6/01) and passed out a description of a $93, 931 grant from the State Bond Act that was awarded to investigate potential contamination at a 6.3-acre site in the City of Troy. (The site will be investigated for potential petroleum contamination in soil and groundwater. The Troy IDA plans to market the site, including former industrial buildings that are used for warehouse space and pallet manufacturing, for the development of new office facilities.) The brownfields grant will fund 75% of the investigation costs, with the Troy IDA funding the balance.

Tom Suozzo informed the group that the City of Syracuse has been awarded a $200,000 U.S. EPA brownfields pilot program grant . He will be representing DEC at a brownfields seminar in Syracuse on March 15. Tom commented that most of the larger metropolitan areas in upstate New York area, with the exception of Binghamton, are now pilot program awardees. [A decision is expected from EPA this month on the Revolving Loan Fund grant that Broome County applied for in December.]

The Chairman offered several items of information. He mentioned that he had done a presentation on March 13^th for the Planning Advisory Board. It appeared to have been well-received and several members of the PAB expressed an interest in potentially attending the presentation by Marc Gregor of Rochester on March 30^th. Planning Commissioner, Julie Sweet, noted at the PAB meeting that she and County Executive Kraham envision a synergy between Mr. Kraham’s Southern Tier Business Park System initiative (under which localities will be asked to nominate sites for inclusion in the system) and the ongoing efforts of the Brownfields Subcommittee to develop a prioritized list of redevelopable brownfield sites.

The Chairman also reported on his participation in the Broome Chamber’s March 8^th Legislative Reception, which featured brief presentations and responses to questions by Jeff Kraham, Bob Warner, Jay Dinga, and Rayan Aguam (filling in for Sen. Tom Libous). Mr. Kraham discussed his Business Park initiative and other items highlighted in his State of the County talk. He also noted that the County is hiring a consulting firm to evaluate the role of the County in administering wastewater treatment. (This has relevance to the subcommittee’s work given the reference by Bob Sweet of ESD to public sewer capacity as a limiting factor in the attractiveness of Broome County to warehouse and distribution facilities.) Mr. Kraham agreed that the competing plans by Governor Pataki and the Senate Majority to expand the size and number of Empire Zone sites in upstate New York would both provide boosts to his Business Park plan. (Vestal Supervisor Starzak appealed to the State and County elected officials to consider the potential negative impact on the tax base of local governments of broadening EZ and similar tax credits and tax abatements. She urged them to consider making up any resulting shortfalls in local tax bases. Jay Dinga explained that the whole premise of such programs was to convert vacant or under-performing properties into productive employers and taxpayers.)

Also at the Legislative Reception, Bob Warner elaborated slightly on a concept mentioned in a February newspaper column—that of utilizing brownfield sites for petroleum storage. He explained that this would probably only have applicability to badly contaminated sites that could not be cost-effectively remediated.

Finally, the Chairman apprised the group of the lead story in the February/March issues of the Southern Tier Earth Times. He commented that the author probably started out with the intent of doing a “hatchet job” on the County Executive’s appointment of a development lawyer to the EMC, but ended up strongly endorsing the efforts of this Subcommittee.

Chip mentioned that he had recently been at a meeting with Tom Libous, Bob Warner, and Jay Dinga and that he had used the occasion, among other things, to comment on the Brownfields issue.

3. Database Development Status: Stacy passed around a possible listing of “Potential Contaminants for inclusion in the MS Access database for Brownfields.” The group felt that the major headings (Inorganic Chemicals, Organic Chemicals, Micoorganisms, Radionuclides) would generally suffice for purposes of the database—with the exception that the Organic Chemicals category should be split out into Petroleum Hydrocarbons, Hazardous Wastes/Hazardous Substances, and Mixed Wastes. This is because regulatory oversight by EPA and DEC (lead agency and program) is divided on this basis (or, at least, between petroleum and non-petroleum contamination) and brownfields funding is often limited to Hazardous Waste/Hazardous Substance and Mixed Waste situations.

Although several members of the subcommittee felt that more specific details on the nature and extent of contamination would be useful, it was agreed that this level of generality would be sufficient for the database—as long as space was provided to (a) insert additional narrative information, where appropriate, and (b) information was included on where the user could go to obtain more detailed information (e.g., specific DEC or EPA reports).

The Chairman commented that, for purposes of initial site screening, it is probably not too necessary to get too deeply into the environmental nitty-gritty. It is envisioned that many sites will drop from the list initially based on small size, lack of good highway access, existing active use (not on the market), etc. When we start looking at environmental factors for sites remaining after that initial screen, our focus will be more on the severity (rather than specific types) of residual contamination and on the status of regulatory review and/or sign-off for the site.

4. Discussion of Candidate Sites: The Chairman used an overhead projector to display a tabulation of candidate sites considered to date, arranged by local jurisdiction. The tabulation showed a total of 77 sites, less various deletions, blanks and duplicates, for a net of 66 candidate sites. Jurisdictions with the greatest (net) number of sites were Binghamton (20), Johnson City (8), Vestal (7), and Endicott (6).

The Chairman passed around a Candidate List Work Sheet (3/14/01) covering Sites ##1-78 and containing spaces for ranking each site (as High, Medium, or Low) in terms of Size, Highway Access, Market Availability, Zoning Classification/Empire Zone Status, and whether the site should be retained on or deleted from the Priority List. As noted on this Work Sheet, six sites have been deleted (##10, 12-14, 19-20), 2 rows are blank (##32 and 74), and at least 3 sites are listed twice.

The discussion began with the consideration of 12 new sites (put forward at the previous meeting) and assigned ##66-78. Row 74 is blank and the Dunn McCarthy/Gotham Shoe Building (#75) was considered to be the same as the Vail Ballou Printing Plant (#66). [Or was #66 considered the same as the Crane Bldg. (#76)? I suspect it is the latter--KK] Four of the sites (##66-69) are brownfield sites, which are available for redevelopment because of fires. Two Railroad Roundhouses (##77-78) were brought up at the previous meeting by Tom Suozzo. Two former E-J plants (##70-71) were mentioned by Ron Brink. And four additional sites (##72-76) were included on a list assembled by Claudia Stallman on May 21, 1999—reflecting nominations by Skip Reynolds, Frank Evangelisti, Gerry Hough, Dee Golazeski, Jocelyn Thornton, and Jack Cahill. These sites were discussed and ranked, leading to a decision to delete 3 of these 12 new sites at this time: the Armory Site (#69); the Glendale Drive E-J plant (#71)—because it is not contaminated; and either the Crane Building or the Dunn McCarthy site (#75 or #76) as being the same as the Vail Ballou Printing Plant (#66). The 9 new sites discussed in this paragraph are already taken into account into the 66 net sites referred to in the first paragraph of this section.

A number of additional sites on the May 1999 list were then discussed. This resulted in the addition of another 7 sites to the Candidate List—all of them in Johnson City: Visions Credit Union Site on Oakdale Rd. (#79); McKilligan’s Bowl on Main St. (#80); Fair Play Carmel on Grand Ave. (#81); Roberson(?) Lumber Yard on Main St. (#82); Specialty Foods on Brown St. (#83), E-J Victory Bldg. on Lester Ave. (#84); and TK Lawn & Hardware on Corliss Ave. (#85). Of these, one was dropped (#79) because of minimal frontage on Oakdale Rd., the presence of a creek onsite, and the site’s relatively small size. The addition of these 6 sites increases the total to 72, and increases Johnson City’s share of the total from 8 to 14.

5. Future Meetings: The next meeting is a special meeting to receive a presentation from Mark Gregor of the City of Rochester. It will be held from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. (note earlier start and earlier conclusion) on Friday, March 30^th. A 4-page handout of notes on the Rochester Program was passed out by the Chairman in preparation for the March 30^th meeting. Members who did not receive this handout and would like a copy should contact either Ken or Stacy.

As noted on the Agenda for the March 14^th meeting, it is proposed to hold our next regular meeting on Wednesday, April 18^th, at the regular time (4:30 p.m.). The suitability of this date will be confirmed at the March 30^th special meeting.

6. The meeting adjourned at 6:00 p.m.

Recorder, Ken Kamlet

3/16/01