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Superfund Model Airplane Zones
Schools on Brownfields
Cancer Risk Guidelines
International Redevelopment
Petroluem Primer
Schools on
Brownfields
More than 3.5 million children in this country attend derelict schools or
ones needing to be replaced, and the largest proportion of these schools are
located in urban centers and serve primarily minority and low-income students.
Often, the only land available for new schools is on sites that might be contaminated
by past industrial, commercial or agricultural activities.
A new report by the Center for Public Environmental Oversight (CPEO) addresses this problem. “Building Schools on Brownfields: Lessons Learned from California,” written by CPEO brownfields program director Bob Hersh, considers what safeguards are in place to ensure that schools built on brownfields are safe for children.
The report examines the typical school site selection process, from the initial identification of potential sites to the selection of the preferred site, and discusses the roles school officials, parents and other community stakeholders play in this process. It considers what can be done to ensure more effective regulatory oversight and community involvement in school siting decisions.
The report is published by the Bureau of National Affairs in its Environmental Due Diligence Guide and can also be downloaded here at CPEO's (PDF)
Cancer Risk Guidelines
The U.S. EPA recently released two documents, “Guidelines for Carcinogen
Risk Assessment (Cancer Guidelines),” and “Supplemental Guidance
for Assessing Susceptibility from Early-Life Exposure to Carcinogens,”
that reflect EPA’s evolving approach to cancer risk assessment. The
guidelines are prospective only and will apply to the agency’s current
and future risk assessments of environmental pollutants.
The cancer guidelines were last revised in 1986. The new guidelines set forth a revised set of recommended principles and procedures to guide scientists in assessing the cancer risks resulting from exposure to chemicals or other agents in the environment. The guidelines are also used to inform agency decision makers and the public about risk assessment procedures.
The supplemental guidance describes possible approaches that EPA could use in assessing cancer risk exposures to children from 0 to 16 years of age and summarizes the results of cancer studies that investigated early-life exposure, EPA’s analysis of those studies, and analysis to strengthen the scientific basis for adjusting from studies conducted in adults to children.
Both documents have undergone extensive public comment and independent scientific peer review and are available at EPA’s Web site.
International Redevelopment
The International Economic Development Council’s (IEDC) new report,
“International Brownfields Redevelopment,” describes and compares
the approaches to redeveloping contaminated land in four countries. Two mechanisms
in particular are noteworthy: large-scale planning for targeted sites and
value capture/cost recovery.
In the Netherlands and Germany, brownfields are approached as part of an integrated planning and redevelopment framework. These countries also have a value-capture mechanism to allow the public sector to realize a return of some of its investment. As practiced in Germany, owners of properties made more valuable by the government’s actions pay the government the difference between the pre- and post-redevelopment value, assisting in the funding of improvements.
The U.K. shares similarities with the U.S. in the strong role that quasi-
and non-governmental organizations take in redevelopment efforts. But key
differences include the U.K.’s strong planning regulations and more
holistic approach to redevelopment.
By contrast, Canada historically has not had national brownfield programs
nor related public funding. In many cases, high land values in urban cores
prompt private sector interest in funding cleanup and redevelopment.
The publication, funded by a grant from U.S. EPA, reviews each country’s
regulatory environment, planning processes, redevelopment practices and funding
sources. Case studies help illustrate how different countries’ economic
and legal frameworks, as well as social goals, affect the redevelopment process.
The executive summary may be viewed and the full report can be purchased at
IEDC’s Web sitei.
Petroluem Primer
The National Association of Local Government Environmental Professionals
and the Northeast Midwest Institute have produced “A Primer for Petroleum
Brownfields.” This report is designed to help existing underground storage
tank field pilot communities (USTfields), and others exploring reuse of petroleum
brownfield sites, to better understand the opportunities that these sites
bring.
As many as 200,000 abandoned gas stations and other petroleum brownfields blight communities across America. The U.S. EPA helped to identify petroleum brownfields success stories and strategies and coordinated the network of 50 pilot communities.
The report can be downloaded from NALGEP’s Web site. BFN