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June 9, 2002

Broome to get help with brownfields

Screening sites may get easier

BY TODD MCADAM
Press & Sun-Bulletin
BINGHAMTON -- Two recent government actions will make redeveloping Broome County's 83 brownfields a bit easier, if not necessarily any cheaper.  

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has awarded Broome County a $200,000 grant as part of its Brownfield Assessment Pilot Project. That money will help the county assess what contamination may exist at several sites on the way to getting them cleaned up. The grant also opens a door to future federal grants that could total millions of dollars.

At the same time, the state Department of Environmental Conservation has published its internal procedures in a guide for its brownfield Voluntary Cleanup Program. That means developers will now know exactly what the state wants done so they can figure the costs into a project.

"If you have more information to study, then you have a much more manageable problem," said Ken Kamlet, an environmental attorney and chairman of the Broome County Environmental Management Council's brownfield committee. "If you don't know what the environmental risk is, you have no way to factor that cost in."

Broome County is dotted with 83 brownfields -- former industrial sites where some form of environmental contamination is presumed. They could be re-developed for any number of uses, but the cost of assessing and cleaning up the contamination adds to the bottom line, which is why many of the brownfields just sit and decay while new businesses are built on unused property -- greenfields.

The state policy change, in particular, helps developers understand the cleanup costs so they can plan for them, Kamlet said, citing the effort FGR Realty had to make when it turned the former Chenango Plaza on Upper Front Street into the site for what is now Lowe's.

The property once housed a dry-cleaner, and developers and state officials presumed it was contaminated. The original voluntary cleanup plan would have cost FGR -- the real estate arm of the family-owned company that operates Giant Markets -- $16,000.

"But every time soil or groundwater monitoring was done, DEC would keep asking for more," Kamlet said, and the cleanup cost ballooned to $250,000.

That fluctuating cost didn't change FGR's decision to develop the property, but Kamlet said it might have deterred others -- and might be deterring them right now.

"That's the practical reality of how all this has been operating," he said.

Gov. George E. Pataki is looking to change that, a state environmental conservation spokesman said. "The governor is trying to codify the program -- make it more predictable, just so developers know what's going on," Peter Constantakes said. Publishing the guide "is basically an educational effort."

Even with the state's change, it has taken a federal grant to help get the effort rolling. The EPA's $200,000 grant isn't enough to do much cleaning -- the costs can range from a few thousand dollars to millions of dollars. Broome County Chief Planner Frank Evangelisti can't say for certain how many sites $200,000 can assess, nor which sites are at the top of the county's priority list -- yet.

But he does have the basic criteria for that decision:

* Former industrial sites.

* Sites with re-development potential.

* Sites that have a blighting affect on the neighborhood around them.

High on the list of potential sites are the former Stowe Manufacturing site and the old Phillips Foundry in Binghamton. The city's former public works garage, across the street from the two industrial sites, would also be a likely contender, although Evangelisti said it would probably be ruled out because the grant isn't meant to target sites whose contamination is primarily petroleum.

Two other sites that Eric Denk, a city council member representing Binghamton's West Side, would like taken care of also aren't likely candidates for the funding, Evangelisti said. That's because both hazardous waste sites have already undergone the type of screening the grant was meant to pay for.

"If the only thing the EPA is doing is another study, I'm not interested," Denk said. "These sites simply have to be cleaned up. Enough talk."

Still, he's not turning up his nose at the money. "I'm glad that the federal government has Binghamton on its radar. It's about time we received the attention that we deserve," he said. "Maybe now something will be done."

© 2002 Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin
 

Earth Times article: http://www.tier.net/~edst/newsletter/ET%20febmar%2001.pdf