Closing the Brownfield Information Gap: Some Practical Methods for Identifying Brownfields

Abstract

Communities historically have had a difficult time understanding the scope and breadth of their brownfield situation. This lack of information has resulted in part from property owner reluctance to reveal contamination potential because of liability fears. Failure to inform creates a debilitating stigma effect, where properties and entire neighborhoods are avoided because of suspected but unknown contamination potential. In this article, I present a method with which communities can address the brownfield information gap while bypassing individual property owner objections by means of a creative combination of existing formal and informal government records. Using assumptions based on the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) official definition of a brownfield, environmental, land use, and property tax information can be collected on an individual property basis. The resulting data will allow communities to develop a more comprehensive brownfields profile that will help reduce the stigma effect of suspected brownfields and further communitywide redevelopment efforts.

Methods of Identification and Evaluation of Brownfield Sites

“…There is a rational explanation for that. According to Coffin and Mayers, a major problem in collecting information is a potential fear of the negative impact on the value of the property, a concern that flawed data will be used to describe the site as brownfield site, concerns about the limited institutional capacity to develop such a register and the inability of the community to recognize purpose of such a register (Coffin and Meyer, 2002). All these create difficulties in the evaluation of brownfield sites.…”

Comparing contaminated property redevelopment for mandatory and Voluntary Cleanup Programs in California

“…The hazard index corresponds to an existing contamination probability table created by Noonan and Vidich (1992). According to Coffin (2003), the hazard index ''established estimates for prior contamination probability based on previous land uses (commercial, industrial, residential, etc.). Although their efforts are not exact measurements (thus, there is the potential for survey bias), their probability estimates have been widely cited because no other comparable data have been produced (Amekudzi et al, 1998).''…”

Environmental Dimensions of Urban Change: Uncovering Relict Industrial Waste Sites and Subsequent Land Use Conversions in Portland and New Orleans

“…Additionally, national and state hazardous waste inventory tracking systems used by many researchers (e.g., Lange, Chang, & LaPorte, 2003; McGlinn, 2000) tend not to capture older sites in operation prior to 1940 (Colten, 1988b) and can vary greatly in quality from database to database and over time (Eckel, Rabinowitz, & Foster, 2001). National surveys reveal similar inconsistencies in how cities and states define, identify, and collect information on potentially contaminated urban brownfields (Coffin, 2003; Yount, 2003). Detailed site histories developed from fire insurance maps, property and tax records, or aerial photography and geographic information systems (GIS) software (Bookspan, 1991; Gilliland & Novak, 2006; Litt & Burke, 2002) offer important advantages over official tracking systems, but they remain costly, time consuming, and offer portraits of specific urban neighborhoods that only hint at the scope and complexity of the problem under investigation (Colten, 1994; Gorman, 1997).…”

“…The overarching consequence is that an unknown number of hazardous waste sites and brownfields remain unidentified in older U.S. cities (Coffin, 2003), which means that relict industrial waste continues to pose a serious problem, particularly in older urban areas. Moreover, it is a problem whose scale, scope, and complexity remain poorly understood.…”

“…To evaluate the framework advanced above, we have developed a novel data collection strategy that responds in spirit and practice to researchers’ recent calls for new methodologies designed specifically to narrow the “brownfields information gap” (Coffin, 2003:34). Although this new methodology, like all methodologies, has limitations, as we describe below, we believe it offers important advantages for bringing new empirical data to bear on this particular information gap.…”