Read the full story in the New York Times.

Across 400 acres in Brooklyn that served as landfills — parcels that are still listed as toxic waste sites –  33,000 trees and shrubs and a variety of grasses are taking root.

There is much potential to reduce the nation’s greenhouse gases through recycling, waste reduction, smart growth, and by reusing formerly contaminated sites including brownfields.

EPA’s report Opportunities to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions through Materials and Land Management Practices finds that 42 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are influenced by materials management policies. This includes the impacts from extracting raw materials, food processing, and manufacturing, transporting, and disposing of products. Another 16 to 20 percent of emissions are associated with land management policies. That includes emissions from passenger transportation, construction, and from lost vegetation when greenfields are cleared for development. In addition, the equivalent of 13 percent of U.S. emissions is absorbed by soil and vegetation and can also be protected or enhanced through land management policies.

Some of the materials and land management activities that have the potential to decrease emissions include:

• reducing the use of non-packaging paper products
• increasing municipal recycling, and recycling of construction and demolition debris
• reusing land, including redevelopment of formerly contaminated lands
• reusing formerly contaminated lands for renewable energy development
• encouraging smart growth

The report suggests that land management and materials management approaches should be part of the nation’s toolbox to meet the target of an 83 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

More information on the report: http://www.epa.gov/oswer/publication.htm

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Ohio EPA has developed an incentive for brownfield cleanups, by partnering with private insurance companies that will offer discounted environmental insurance to parties undertaking a voluntary cleanup in Ohio.

Via Techdirect.

Petroleum Brownfields Web Site. EPA’s new petroleum brownfields web site is designed to make information more accessible for those working to foster the cleanup and reuse of petroleum-impacted properties. It provides easy access to information that both new users and those familiar with brownfields will find useful. For instance, the Web site provides access to: “how to” guides, ways to find petroleum brownfields sites, assessment and cleanup information, financial guides and EPA Brownfields program and grants information, public/private partnership information, and sustainability and petroleum brownfields. More information at http://www.epa.gov/oust/petroleumbrownfields/ .

Petroleum Brownfields: Developing Inventories (EPA 510-R-09-002). This publication is intended as a tool to help states, tribes, EPA Brownfields Assessment grant recipients, and others develop an inventory of relatively low-risk, petroleum-contaminated brownfield properties. The publication has three sections. Section I identifies petroleum brownfields inventories as a tool for building and promoting a brownfields program. Section II outlines considerations for building an inventory, and Section III discusses best practices from stakeholders that have implemented a petroleum brownfields inventory (May 2009, 34 pages). View or download at http://www.epa.gov/oust/pubs/pbfdevelopinventories.pdf .

HowStuffWorks.com has an excellent podcast on brownfield bioremediation. Links to their Stuff You Should Know podcasts (via iTunes) are available here. Interesting, entertaining stuff.

Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.

The long-idled site of the U.S. Steel South Works was buzzing with activity once again Wednesday as 300,000 workers, nurses, cleaners, guards and a few gigolos took up residence on the city’s southern lakefront.

The assembled toilers were busy bees, indeed—five-banded Italian honey bees, to be precise. A Chicago wine and mead maker brought them here to make honey for his mead, which many call “honey wine.”

Read the full post at Treehugger.

In Japan, they don’t just let factories rust away. Matt Frei of the BBC visits one where they used to make steel cable, but with demand down, they have converted much of it to grow hydroponic lettuce, with the former steelworkers tending the tender shoots. “The company expects the solution will save the business and help it survive the downturn.”

Read the press release.

The abandoned corner gas station can look toward a new life with an action plan that focuses on cleaning up brownfields sites contaminated with petroleum. EPA’s plan, Petroleum Brownfields Action Plan: Promoting Revitalization and Sustainability, describes specific actions, new tools, and opportunities for expanding partnerships to foster the reuse of sites. The petroleum brownfields program focuses on assessing, cleaning up, and reusing petroleum-contaminated brownfields sites.

In a novel approach to return land to productive use, EPA has identified thousands of properties that could potentially host solar, wind or biomass energy production facilities. EPA pinpointed these energy assets using Google Earth and has listed each property’s attributes for energy redevelopment.

“EPA is putting renewable energy production on the virtual map,” said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. “Our new interactive Website encourages states and energy companies to put previously contaminated properties back to work.”

EPA worked with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory to collect information on renewable energy availability across the country, and merged it with EPA’s data from several land cleanup programs. In addition, EPA applied screening criteria including distance from power lines, closeness to roads, and site acreage to identify sites that are good candidates for hosting renewable energy production facilities.

In producing the interactive state maps, EPA used information on properties from several land cleanup programs, including abandoned mine lands and lands under EPA’s Superfund, Brownfields, and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act programs.

These properties have varying levels of historic contamination. Contamination at some of these properties has already been addressed, while the level of contamination at others is still to be fully investigated. It is likely that some of the brownfields properties have little historic contamination. The appropriate steps to address the contamination at these properties will vary from site to site, depending on the nature of the contamination and intended reuse.

The properties offer a number of attractive features for the development of renewable energy facilities including:

• appropriate location, useful infrastructure, such as transmission lines and roads, and appropriate zoning for development;
• landowners and local communities that are often eager to see new economic uses for these properties;
• an alternative to using green spaces, which may help reduce community concerns about the effects of a planned renewable energy facility.

Information about renewable energy development potential on contaminated lands:
http://www.epa.gov/renewableenergyland

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is providing more than $500,000 in technical assistance for 16 Brownfields Sustainability Pilots. Assistance will support sustainable activities such as the reuse and recycling of construction and demolition materials, green building and infrastructure design, energy efficiency, water conservation, renewable energy development, and native landscaping.

“Brownfields redevelopment and sustainable reuse can go hand in hand,” said Susan Bodine, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. “These pilots will demonstrate best practices that can be used by other communities across the country.”

EPA will work with communities to incorporate sustainable redevelopment into the planning, design, and implementation of their brownfields projects. Each pilot project will receive between $20,000 and $50,000 in assistance. Pilot examples include:

• Analysis of green roof systems for a brownfields project in Roxbury, Mass.
• Feasibility analysis of reusing and recycling materials from closed textile mills in Valley, Ala.
• Green building and green infrastructure design at a former smelter in San Juan County, Colo.
• Assistance with applying green building principles and providing community training at a former gas station being converted into a community center in Portland, Ore.

Brownfields are sites where expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. In January 2002, President Bush signed the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act, which increased funding, expanded authority, and provided liability protection to help communities revitalize brownfields. EPA provides grants, technical assistance and training to support local brownfields efforts.

For more information on the Brownfields Sustainability Pilots, go to epa.gov/brownfields/sustain_plts/index.htm

Read the full story at EcoGeek.

Osaka Japan housed a baseball stadium that few people cared to visit. In 2003, the stadium was shut down, but with its prime location near the Namba Train Station, folks knew it was a waste not to convert the building and utilize it for something that would indeed turn a profit. The Nankai Electric Railway, owner of the site, worked with architecture company Jerde to create a unique, artistic and practical application for the building. Jerde came up with turning the 8.33 acres of urban concrete into a productive office and retail complex that features 2.2 acres of lush gardens that welcome visitors in from the street.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Restoring landfill sites by turning them into greenspace, such as woodland, parkland, or farmland is now possible, new research shows.

Read the full story in the Madison-St.Clair Record.

Six years after state and local leaders unveiled a plan to clean up 840 acres of refinery pollution and attract all sorts of industry, those in charge of the project have gone away but the pollution has not.

The cleanup of the former American Oil Company refinery collapsed in 2004, after soil samples revealed contaminants that had not showed up in previous samples.

Read the press release.

Communities in 43 states will share more than $74 million in brownfields grants to help revitalize former industrial and commercial sites, turning them from problem properties to productive community use. The grants, awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, also go to two tribes and two U.S. Territories.

Read the press release.

Thirteen communities in 10 states will share more than $2.5 million in job training grants geared toward cleaning up contaminated properties and turning them into productive community assets. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under its Brownfields Initiative, is awarding grants of up to $200,000 each to non-profit organizations, local governments, a university, and a tribe. The grants will teach environmental assessment and cleanup job skills to individuals living in low-income areas near brownfields sites in Alabama, California, Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Washington.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Just outside the city limits of Tel Aviv, Israel, a transformation is taking place. Hiriya, once a waste landfill, is quickly becoming the largest and most advanced environmental center in the country. Today Hiriya is the base for a waste sorting and recycling center as well as a green energy center. Not very long ago, the site was a dump. With innovative thinking and a desire to give back to the community, what was once a waste of space will soon be part of expansive Ayalon Park.

Read the full story in the Bay City Times.

Recent changes to Michigan brownfield laws may awaken sleeping giants in Essexville and other smaller communities.

Up until the changes became law in late December, only 100 so-called “core communities” could take advantage of tools that allow developers to be reimbursed for cleaning up or demolishing old industrial properties -Â called brownfields.

Now, every community in Michigan can use tax incentives to redevelop such properties, including places like Essexville, which wasn’t among the 100 communities covered under the old law.

Read the full story in E: The Environmental Magazine.

Southeast False Creek in Vancouver, British Columbia, will be the site of the 2010 Olympic Village and a model neighborhood for sustainable urban planning. Once a bleak industrial scar on the city landscape, the neighborhood now has the potential to be one of the most sustainable communities in one of the greenest cities in the world.

Read the full story in the News-Gazette.

Some of the best soil in the world washes into the Illinois River every day, where it clogs shipping and recreational channels.

Elsewhere in Illinois, developers pay good money to have soil dug out and moved by trucks to their sites.

It isn’t easy to dredge river mud onto barges, then take it where it’s needed to cover a landfill or create a park, but that’s exactly what scientists from Champaign are having done.

Black, heavy earth from the bottom of Lower Peoria Lake, a widening of the Illinois River, is now drying on top of the clay liner of the closed Pekin Landfill.

When the trucks dump it, water doesn’t run out. It maintains its shape, and it’s possible to walk on it – if you don’t mind ruining your Keds.

Mud from the same source is growing grasses and weeds at a future Chicago lakefront park that was formerly the U.S. Steel South Works plant on the South Side.

John Marlin, who oversees the project as a senior scientist at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ Waste Management and Research Center in Champaign, said he can’t see any downside to the work.

Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.

Mayor Richard Daley took an hourlong boat ride on the Chicago River in fall 1997 and came back with a vision of improving the riverfront in the city’s neighborhoods.

Just about that time, Thomas DiPiazza, an ally of Daley’s, also took an interest in the riverfront, buying a highly contaminated piece of land that was slated to become a public park under the mayor’s plan.

Nearly 10 years later, the park still has not opened, but DiPiazza’s real estate investment has paid off handsomely, according to a Tribune investigation.

Report of the NICOLE Workshop: Redevelopment of Sites – the Industrial Perspective.

The restructuring of European economies, including the migration of manufacturing to Asia, has resulted in many underused, derelict and contaminated industrial sites. At the same time land demand, principally lead by housing, has made many of these urban sites into attractive assets. The owners of these sites would like to realize the value of these assets and at the same time avoid any future risk of liability.

This NICOLE report summarizes the papers delivered at this meeting along with a discussion based on the points raised during the meeting. The workshop reviewed: Drivers for redevelopment of sites for government municipality industry redevelopers; Management of liability; Case studies; and Tools and communication (August 2007, 34 pages).

View or download at http://www.nicole.org/publications/library.asp?listing=1.

European Brownfield Revitalisation Agenda.

There are many examples of good practice that have produced positive results from brownfield site project redevelopment across Europe. Much of this information is a result of individual EU funded projects but these have not necessarily been brought together to build up a body of collective experience.

There is an opportunity to bring together best practices and the various tools that have been developed to create the best opportunities for an integrated approach for the future redevelopment of Brownfield sites. Policy makers and developers should be supported through a conduit of best practice, the collation of information, and a network of specialists with practical experience in the field. The main objective of the EUBRA Agenda is to support policy makers and program managers in setting priorities in future national and international funding programs (Summer 2007, 24 pages).

View or download at http://www.sv-ertel.de/eubra/EUBRA_agenda.pdf.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, along with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the U.S. Air Force, Sacramento County and McClellan Business Park, has announced that, for the first time, the military will fund a private party to conduct clean up in conjunction with redevelopment at a Superfund site. (more…)

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Oct. 12 is the deadline for anyone interested in applying for EPA brownfields grants — funds that can be used for contaminated sites, including those contaminated by hazardous substances, petroleum or both.

According to an Aug. 23 statement by the agency, available funding includes:

• Assessment grants — Up to $200,000 each over three years.
• Cleanup grants — Up to $200,000 each over three years.
• Revolving loan fund — Up to $1 million each over five years.

Those who are eligible for the grants include local, state and tribal governments; nonprofits; coalitions; land clearance authorities; and quasi-governmental entities interested in a brownfields assessment, cleanup or a revolving loan fund grant. For more information on the EPA brownfields grant application guidelines, go to http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/applicat.htm#fy08.

Read the full AP story in the Daily Journal (Bourbonnais, IL).

On a recent warm day, John Marlin bounded across giant mounds of spongy, gray mud. He knelt and grabbed a softball-sized lump.

Around him, the mud had begun drying to form cracked polygons that fit together like a five-acre jigsaw puzzle.

“People when they see this, naturally they say, ‘Oh my gosh, nothing’s ever going to grow on this,’” he said. “Well, that’s just not the case.”

Marlin, a senior scientist with the Illinois Waste Management and Resource Center, whose work has earned him the nickname “Dr. Mud,” is the brains behind Illinois’ $2.25 million “Mud to Parks” project.

Recently, the experimental program finished dredging about 114,000 tons of sediment from the bottom of Peoria Lake, a widening of the Illinois River in central Illinois. That sediment will be used to lay the foundation for a park 150 miles to the northeast – along Lake Michigan, on Chicago’s South Side.

Nine state or local governments are receiving supplemental grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help return problem properties to productive use.  Approximately $2.2 million is being awarded to brownfields revolving loan funds grantees. Brownfields are sites where expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. (more…)

Communities in 38 states will receive brownfields grants to help revitalize former industrial and commercial sites, turning them from problem properties to productive community use. Two territories and five tribal nations also will share the $70.7 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (more…)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded two grants totaling $600,000 to help Native American tribes redevelop and return contaminated lands to productive use. (more…)

Via Governing.com’s Idea Center.

There are more than 450,000 brownfields in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. To help redevelop these contaminated properties, the EPA has launched a pilot project that seeks to incorporate economically sound development with sustainable practices. The Environmentally Responsible Redevelopment and Reuse Initiative (ER3) works with states, municipalities, developers and other groups to integrate green principles into proposed projects that include green building design, construction and operation; use of renewable energy resources; waste minimization and recycling; storm water and wastewater management; and smart growth. In exchange, the EPA offers incentives, including agreements that provide liability relief on Superfund property and letters that describe the likelihood of EPA involvement or clarifies the cleanup progress at a site. The first ER3 project is underway in Park City, Utah, where the once-contaminated Daly West Mine site is being redeveloped into an environmentally responsible resort and spa facility. To learn more or to submit a redevelopment proposal for your state or municipality, click here.

Read the full solicitation.

This notice announces the availability of funds and solicits applications from eligible entities and non-profit organizations to provide educational outreach, training, research, and technical assistance to tribal governments that will increase their capacity to establish, manage, and administer Tribal CERCLA 128(a) Response Programs. Tribal entities are especially encouraged to apply.

Via Biopact.

Energy crops do not enter the food chain. That is why scientists are looking into using them as plants to clean up polluted sites such as ‘brownfields’ or mining sites, or during extractive activities such as coal gas mining, in a process called ‘phytoremediation’. This kind of research is still young, but in France things are speeding ahead.

The French Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) has carried out test trials with Miscanthus giganteus, an energy crop being used already on a commercial scale, and confirms the fact that the tall grass tolerates high levels of heavy metals in the soil, while only accumulating low levels of cadmium in its leaves as it grows.

Given this profile, miscanthus is now being used in a project to clean up ancient industrial sites in the Parisian suburbs. The project is part of an effort of re-greening the capital and of gradually integrating ‘urban agriculture’ into its fabric. The research is carried out in the middle of Paris (Ile-de-France) at a cost of €750,000 for a period of five years (2006-20100). Miscanthus is only one of the energy crops being tested, with others including several species of wheat and fast-growing energy trees such as hybrid poplar. The stated objective of the phytoremediation effort is “to create a new system of sustainable agricultural activities on polluted sites, aimed at generating non-food products such as fuels and biomaterials for industry.”

Read the full story at RenewableEnergyAccess.com.

San Francisco’s first neighborhood powered entirely by clean, renewable energy is planned for a 93-acre parcel at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard by collaboration between San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) and Lennar BVHP.

Read the full story at RenewableEnergyAccess.com.

Growing crops for biofuels summons images of fuel alternatives springing from the rural heartland. But a Michigan State University partnership with DaimlerChrysler is looking at turning industrial brownfields green.

Read the full article in Environmental Protection magazine.

A Michigan State University (MSU) partnership with DaimlerChrysler seeks to turn industrial brownfields green with a project that would grow crops for biofuels.

Kurt Thelen, MSU professor of crop and soil sciences, is leading the investigation to examine the possibility that some oilseed crops like soybeans, sunflower and canola, and other crops such as corn and switchgrass, can be grown on abandoned industrial sites for use in ethanol or biodiesel fuel production. Another partner is NextEnergy, a nonprofit organization that supports energy technology development.

In the July issue of EP, Jeffrey Hanneman, Esq., discusses how insurance companies are helping turn contaminated sites turn into solar energy producers.

Read the full article at PlanetSave.com.

The Astros ballpark, the Downtown Aquarium and the Federal Reserve Bank are all examples of how the City of Houston is cleaning up and reusing local brownfields to create positive impacts on the community through its Brownfields Redevelopment Program. Brownfields are properties where redevelopment is complicated by the presence or perceived presence of environmental contamination.

Read the full story in Holmdel (NJ) Independent.

It’s not easy being green, especially in Central Jersey, where sometimes the only open space left is the result of long-abandoned garbage dumps.

Andy Willner, executive director of the NY/NJ Baykeeper, points to the old Aeromarine property as a perfect example of a dump worth saving.

Read the full story in the Portland Oregonian.

As buildable sites dwindle, developers turn to contaminated land.

Read the full story in Newsday.

A state program aims at redeveloping abandoned sites; but critics are finding reasons for concern.

Read the full story in the Utica Observer-Dispatch.

Oneida County is getting $50,000 worth of help from the federal government to assess contaminated areas. The technical assistance to be provided by Community Action for a Renewed Environment is just the start for city and town officials to assess areas they believe to be contaminated, said Faye Rosselle, project coordinator for Oneida County and a consultant for the Oneida County Health Department.

Read the full story in Kansas City infoZine.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources in partnership with the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department have hired a contractor who will develop ideas for potential recreational reuse of the former Riverfront Landfill.

It offers some of the nation’s most lucrative incentives to reuse blighted land, but some developers and affordable housing advocates say New York’s landmark brownfields cleanup legislation is becoming better known so far as a source of bureaucratic headaches and legal confusion. [Source: Newsday]