By Cliff Lewis
During the morning of Thursday, May 14, over 60 local business and community representatives gathered to hear a State and County sponsored seminar about cleaning up and reusing “brownfield” sites in Pennsylvania. The primary purpose of the meeting, hosted by the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Lancaster County Planning Commission (LCPC), was to raise awareness of funds for brownfield remediation projects through the DEP’s “Act 2” land recycling program.
A brownfield site is defined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as any property where “the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.” Typically, these tend to be post-industrial sites, but the definition is rather broad. In fact, a property does not technically need to be contaminated to qualify as a brownfield site; it need only be “potentially” contaminated.
Before Act 2 was passed in 1995, the trend among developers was to avoid the use of these kinds of sites in favor of perceivably less complicated green space. Many once-industrial plots were left neglected and vacant, and many once-open spaces were cleared and developed. Industrial neighborhood economies were drained, and virgin lands were stripped.
The purpose of Act 2 was to stunt this trend by providing financial incentives for brownfield remediation and by providing legal protection against lawsuits related to the property, once it is shown complaint with DEP standards. Some of the financial incentives include special grants and low-interest loans for project assessment and remediation.
Some area “success stories” in brownfield remediation were described at the meeting. Among these were the former site of Garber Motors in Elizabethtown (now hosting a restaurant), the successful removal of soil contamination at Brethren Village Retirement Community, and the massive effort currently underway to redevelop former sites of Armstrong World Industries.
Mary Gattis-Schell, a Senior Environmental Planner for the LCPC, let the audience know that her organization is currently compiling a list of “redevelopment opportunity sites” as an aid to those who are interested in pursuing development of local brownfields. Although no properties on this list will be labeled (and thus stigmatized) as a brownfield, the list will contain properties that could potentially qualify for brownfield remediation support.
