Use and Reuse at EPA Cleanup Sites

By Bonnie Smith, Deborah Goldblum and Kristeen Gaffney

The U.S. EPA has released its first comprehensive review of how land is now being used at CERCLA and RCRA sites in the mid-Atlantic region. The report quantifies the use, reuse and land potentially available for reuse at hazardous waste cleanup sites and charts the progress being made toward EPA’s goal of revitalizing contaminated sites. 

“EPA’s cleanup programs are focusing more effort on facilitating reuse because a plan for reuse can accelerate the cleanup, revitalize neighborhoods and provide economic benefits to communities,” said Donald S. Welsh, EPA’s mid-Atlantic regional administrator.

The report classified the land at the cleanup sites as either in continued use, reuse, planned reuse or no current use/vacant. The report also provides information on what kinds of reuse are occurring on the cleanup sites so one can see what types of reuse are possible. EPA and state agencies will be able to use this information to track progress being made to support the goal of returning formerly contaminated sites to productive use.

Information was collected on 511 contaminated properties: 174 Super-fund NPL sites, 280 RCRA corrective action facilities, and 57 federal facilities located in the states of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. These properties cover 230,494 acres, a land area equivalent to 10 Manhattan Islands. The full report can be found at EPA’s Region 3 Web site.

Contaminated Land Can Be and Is Being Reused
The study demonstrates that once severely contaminated land is being put back into productive use and that reuse can occur during all stages of environmental investigation and cleanup of the site. Key findings include:

• The majority of land at the sites reviewed is currently being used or has a plan for reuse — 93 percent of the total acres.
• Of the land at cleanup sites today, 81 percent (186,360 acres) continues to be used in the same general manner as when the site was found to be contaminated. These include active industrial and military sites.
• 109 cleanup sites, or portions of those sites, have been converted to new uses. 15,981 acres (7 percent of the total land) are being reused and an additional 11,010 acres (5 percent of the total land) have a plan for reuse.
• On Superfund sites, more than half of the acres (1,844 acres) in reuse or planned for reuse are green space, such as parks, wildlife areas or recreation areas.
• On RCRA sites, about half the acres (5,421 acres) in reuse or planned for reuse are for non-industrial uses, such as commercial and mixed uses.

Advantages of Reuse
A 1997 EPA-funded study concluded that every acre of brownfields reused preserves 4.5 acres of surrounding greenfields. Since almost 16,000 acres of Superfund and RCRA sites have been reused in the mid-Atlantic region, it is estimated that doing so has prevented 72,000 acres (about 112 square miles) from being developed.
Reusing contaminated sites can provide significant benefits to the surrounding community. Economic or environmental benefits associated with reuse in Region 3 include:

• 38 sites reported a total of 24,986 local jobs created or retained
• 13 sites reported reuse investments totaling nearly $4 billion
• 23 sites reported open space or sustainable reuse on the site
• 7 sites reported new housing construction totaling 189 new homes

The report also identified 17,143 vacant or underutilized acres on 166 sites (an area about the size of Manhattan) that may have potential for future reuse. However, some may have limitations on the type of reuse.

Vacant acres are found on 101 Superfund NPL sites, 55 RCRA corrective action facilities and 10 federal facilities. Many of these properties are entirely vacant while others have vacant parcels within the site.

The report demonstrates how EPA and its state partners can help revitalize former cleanup sites by helping property owners and communities facilitate their reuse.
The agencies have actively participated in reuse efforts by providing information to interested users, coordinating with other regulatory programs, incorporating reuse plans into cleanup design, helping to resolving liability concerns and expediting cleanup to support reuse. BFN

Bonnie Smith, Deborah Goldblum and Kristeen Gaffney are with U.S. EPA Region 3.