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Position Papers |
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Sample Position Paper / OpEd Piece |
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When the economy is bad, you try to reuse and extend the life of older items. The same is true of previously used land—sometimes known as “Brownfield” sites—especially when cities, towns and villages throughout the State have severe shortages of developable virgin real estate.
The benefits of redeveloping brownfields are clear and dramatic in terms of stimulating the economy and encouraging growth (as well as providing ancillary environmental benefits):
New York State desperately needs to reform its Brownfields programs to make them workable—both the “environmental restoration program” for municipally-owned brownfields under the 1996 Bond Act and the “voluntary cleanup program” for privately-owned Brownfields under complex administrative procedures established by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
Neither of these programs has come close to achieving its objectives because both programs have been hijacked by well-intentioned but misguided environmental advocates. As has become painfully clear, it does not help the environment to make Brownfield cleanup rules so strict that few cleanups occur. Instead, what these programs need are incentives to make them attractive for beneficial redevelopment. And they need not be ECONOMIC incentives in these times of fiscal austerity. All that is needed are user-friendly procedures to promote and facilitate voluntary cleanups based on cost-effective risk-based standards.
What that means is establishing cleanup standards that are designed to protect public health and the environment, taking into account the contemplated use of the site. What it doesn’t mean is cleanup for cleanup’s sake. There is no reason the soil beneath the pavement of a factory site needs to be as clean as the backyard soil of a toddler-filled daycare center. It also doesn’t mean, in a country where the general population is subject to an average lifetime cancer risk of one-in-four (250,000 chances in a million), that we need to worry about purifying groundwater that is not used as a drinking water source—or confined soil--of trace chemicals that, if directly consumed or inhaled over a lifetime, might pose an incremental cancer risk of one-in-a-million.
While the notion that “cleaner is [always] better” has superficial appeal, it has several overriding flaws as a public policy principle:
· Neither the government nor the private sector has enough money to clean every contaminated site to Garden of Eden levels of pristineness—especially in areas where real estate doesn’t command millions of dollars per acre. · Cleaner may be better to a point—but beyond that point, one quickly realizes diminishing returns… and, ultimately, negative and counterproductive returns. · If $1 million will clean 10 sites to the 90% level and revitalize the economy at 10 locations, but will clean only one site to the 99% level, does either the economy or the environment benefit from spending all the money at one site? · The Brownfields program can only succeed if private owners and developers are willing to do voluntary cleanups as part of development projects. Polluters should be made to pay. But, if innocent volunteers are penalized with excessive cleanup costs, they will not volunteer. Instead of having a risk-based cleanup that protects health and the environment, there is no cleanup at all and the Brownfield sites remain a blight on the landscape and a drain on the economy.
This doesn’t mean sacrificing public safety. It simply means—contrary to the approach taken by our DEC and advocated by some legislators—that low-risk Brownfield sites don’t require the same stringent cleanup standards designed for high-risk Superfund sites. And it recognizes the reality that State funding and private resources are finite. Applying one-size-fits-all clean-up standards—at enormous expense to private owners and developers—is simply not necessary to protect public health. And it is very poor public policy.
Nearly every other state in the country has embraced the concept of “risk-based cleanups” in their Brownfields programs. New York remains one of the few states unable to pass legislation to encourage voluntary cleanups by prospective purchasers and developers of Brownfield sites. New York’s legislators could make a real investment in the economic viability and stability of our State by encouraging the Economic Development Committees of the Assembly and Senate to fashion—and then joining together to adopt—meaningful Brownfields reform legislation in THIS SESSION of the Legislature.
One of New York’s greatest assets is its land. Too much of that land is blighted by abandoned factories and deteriorating commercial structures. We urgently need to make these sites a thriving part of a revitalized economy.
Binghamton, NY, January 31, 2002
For
additional information, please contact:
kkamlet@hotmail.com
Sample Letter to the Editor Editor Fax: 315-478-8166 The Central New York Business Journal 231 Walton Street Syracuse, New York 13202-1230 E-Mail: letters@cnybj.com
Re: Role of Brownfields in
Boosting Central New York’s Economy To The Editor:
I live and work in the economically
depressed Southern Tier, in economically depressed Upstate New York, in a
state whose overall economy is hurting. Cities, towns, and villages
throughout the State are desperate to attract new development and revitalize
their economies. Promoting new development on previously used land in
decaying urban areas is a key ingredient in any successful revitalization
effort because virgin land with adequate infrastructure is scarce.
Unfortunately, these “brownfield” sites are often contaminated with
pollutants from prior commercial and industrial site uses. However, in most
cases, the level of contamination is small and the risk to public health and
the environment is minimal.
Three things are clear to most fair-minded
people: (1) leaving these brownfields as they are to further deteriorate is
of no benefit to either the environment or the economy; (2) encouraging
redevelopment of these brownfields, even if low levels of contamination
remain in the ground beneath asphalt or concrete, would be a great
improvement on both scores; and (3) neither the government nor private
developers can afford to restore the State’s thousands of brownfield sites
to Garden of Eden levels of pristineness. The State doesn’t even have the
money to clean up a much smaller number of truly dangerous Superfund sites.
The U.S. EPA and most states have recognized
this and have established programs to encourage the voluntary cleanup and
redevelopment of brownfield sites. Fundamental to these programs is the
concept of risk-based cleanups. That is: a developer need only clean up to
the extent necessary to protect public health and the environment. If you
require additional cleanup for cleanup’s sake, you discourage businesspeople
from volunteering to redevelop these sites, and everyone loses. So, why are so few brownfield sites being redeveloped in New York State?
Unfortunately, New York’s organized
environmental naysayers have the ear of the Democrat-controlled State
Assembly, which proudly recites a mantra of “more cleanup is better” and
flatly rejects the concept of risk-based cleanups. As a result, New York is
one of the few states without a statutory Voluntary Cleanup Program. It
also has one of the worst track-records in the country on redeveloped
brownfields and associated economic revitalization.
Maybe there was a time when New York State
and its myriad local governments could afford to shower money on
environmental problems and ignore economic development opportunities. But
that time is long past. It is time for urgent and effective action by our
legislators in Albany. Sincerely, Kenneth S. Kamlet Attorney at Law
The
writer is Director of Legal Affairs for Newman Development Group, LLC, a
major developer of shopping centers in the Greater Binghamton area and
elsewhere. Further information on this subject may be found on his
Brownfields Website:
http://www.ny-brownfields.com .
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