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In urban planning, brownfield land is any previously developed land that is not currently in use. It may be potentially contaminated, but this is not required for the area to be considered brownfield. The term is also used to describe land previously used for industrial or commercial purposes with known or suspected pollution including soil contamination due to hazardous waste. Examples sites include abandoned
factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...
,
landfills A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...
, dry cleaning establishments and gas stations. Typical contaminants include hydrocarbon spillages, solvents and pesticides, as well as
heavy metals upright=1.2, Crystals of osmium, a heavy metal nearly twice as dense as lead">lead.html" ;"title="osmium, a heavy metal nearly twice as dense as lead">osmium, a heavy metal nearly twice as dense as lead Heavy metals are generally defined as ...
like lead,
tributyl tin Tributyltin (TBT) is an umbrella term for a class of organotin compounds which contain the (C4H9)3 Sn group, with a prominent example being tributyltin oxide. For 40 years TBT was used as a biocide in anti-fouling paint, commonly known as bott ...
s and
asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere ...
. Many contaminated brownfield sites sit unused for decades as involuntary parks because cleaning cost is more than land worth after
redevelopment Redevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses. It represents a process of land development uses to revitalize the physical, economic and social fabric of urban space. Description Variations on redevelopment include: ...
. Previously unknown underground wastes can increase the cost for study and clean-up. Acquisition, adaptive re-use, and disposal of a brownfield site requires advanced and specialized appraisal analysis techniques. Remediation techniques include in situ oxidation or thermal remediation,
bioremediation Bioremediation broadly refers to any process wherein a biological system (typically bacteria, microalgae, fungi, and plants), living or dead, is employed for removing environmental pollutants from air, water, soil, flue gasses, industrial effluent ...
, phytoremediation, or
soil vapor extraction Soil vapor extraction (SVE) is a physical treatment process for in situ remediation of volatile contaminants in vadose zone (unsaturated) soils (EPA, 2012). SVE (also referred to as in situ soil venting or vacuum extraction) is based on mass tra ...
.


Definition


Canada

Environment and Climate Change Canada Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC; french: Environnement et Changement climatique Canada),Environment and Climate Change Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of the Environment ...
defines brownfields as "abandoned, idle or underutilized commercial or industrial properties ypically located in urban areaswhere past actions have caused environmental contamination, but which still have potential for redevelopment or other economic opportunities."


United States

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defined brownfield not simply as a possible improvement site which has been previously improved, but one that may also have impediments, such as "the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant". This comports well with an available general definition of the term, which scopes to "industrial or commercial property". The term ''brownfields'' first came into use on June 28, 1992, at a U.S. congressional field hearing hosted by the Northeast Midwest Congressional Coalition. Also in 1992, the first detailed policy analysis of the issue was convened by the Cuyahoga County, Ohio Planning Commission. EPA selected Cuyahoga County as its first brownfield pilot project in September 1993. The term applies more generally to previously used land or to sections of industrial or commercial facilities that are to be upgraded. In 2002,
President George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
signed the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act (the "Brownfields Law") which provides grants and tools to
local governments Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-l ...
for the assessment, cleanup, and revitalization of brownfields. The motivation for this act was the success of the EPA's brownfields program, which it started in the 1990s in response to several court cases that caused lenders to redline contaminated property for fear of liability under the Superfund. As of September 2015, the EPA estimates that the Brownfields program has resulted in 56,442 acres of land readied for reuse. ''Mothballed brownfields'' are properties that the owners are not willing to transfer or put to productive reuse. Brownfield status is a legal designation which places restrictions, conditions or incentives on redevelopment and use on the site.


United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the term 'brownfield' has a colloquial meaning roughly equivalent to the American usage described above, i.e. vacant or derelict land or property, usually industrial in nature. In terms of British Town and Country Planning, however, the meaning of 'brownfield' is more complex, and is often conflated with the technical term 'previously developed land' (PDL). PDL was originally defined in planning policy for housing development in England and Wales, and was carefully distinguished in such policy from 'brownfield', which was undefined but considered to be different. The definition from the 2012 National Planning Policy Guidance, which only applies to England, uses the terms 'brownfield' and 'previously developed land' interchangeably: "Land which is or was occupied by a permanent structure, including the
curtilage In common law, the curtilage of a house or dwelling is the land immediately surrounding it, including any closely associated buildings and structures, but excluding any associated " open fields beyond". In feudal times every castle with its depen ...
of the developed land (although it should not be assumed that the whole of the curtilage should be developed) and any associated fixed surface infrastructure. This excludes: * land that is or has been occupied by agricultural or forestry buildings; * land that has been developed for minerals extraction ( mining) or waste disposal by landfill purposes where provision for restoration has been made through development control procedures; * land in built-up areas such as private residential gardens, parks, recreation grounds and allotments; and * land that was previously developed but where the remains of the permanent structure or fixed surface structure have blended into the landscape in the process of time."


Locations and contaminants

Generally, brownfield sites exist in a city's or town's industrial section, on locations with abandoned
factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...
or commercial buildings, or other previously polluting operations like steel mills, refineries or landfills. Small brownfields also may be found in older residential neighborhoods, as for example dry cleaning establishments or gas stations produced high levels of subsurface contaminants. Typical contaminants found on contaminated brownfield land include hydrocarbon spillages, solvents, pesticides, heavy metals such as lead (e.g., paints),
tributyl tin Tributyltin (TBT) is an umbrella term for a class of organotin compounds which contain the (C4H9)3 Sn group, with a prominent example being tributyltin oxide. For 40 years TBT was used as a biocide in anti-fouling paint, commonly known as bott ...
s, and
asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere ...
. Old maps may assist in identifying areas to be tested.


Brownfield status by country

The primary issue facing all nations involved in attracting and sustaining new uses to brownfield sites is globalization of industry. This directly affects brownfield reuse, such as limiting the effective economic life of the use on the revitalized sites.


Canada

Canada has an estimated 200,000 "contaminated sites" across the nation. Canada had about 23,078 federally recognized contamination sites, from abandoned mines, to airports, lighthouse stations, and military bases, which are classified into N 1,2,or 3, depending on a score of contamination, with 5,300 active contaminated sites, 2,300 suspected sites and 15,000 listed as closed because remediated or no action was necessary. The provincial governments have primary responsibility for brownfields. The provinces' legal mechanisms for managing risk are limited, as there are no tools such as "No Further Action" letters to give property owners finality and certainty in the cleanup and reuse process. Yet, Canada has cleaned up sites and attracted investment to contaminated lands such as the Moncton rail yards. A strip of the Texaco lands in Mississauga is slated to be part of the
Waterfront Trail Stretching over 3600 km (2236 miles) from Prince Township, west of Sault Ste. Marie, to the Quebec border, the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail is a signed route of interconnecting roads and off-road trails joining over 150 communities and First Na ...
. However, Imperial Oil has no plans to sell the property which has been vacant since the 1980s. According to their 2014 report on federally listed contaminated sites, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated that the "total liability for remediating Canada's contaminated sites reported in the public accounts as$4.9 billion." The report listed significant sites called the Big Five with a liability of $1.8 billion: Faro mine,
Colomac Mine The Colomac Mine was a privately owned and operated open pit gold mine located 220 km northwest of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories in Canada . The Colomac mine operated between 1990–1992, and 1994–1997. It was operated by Neptune ...
,
Giant Mine The Giant Mine was a gold mine located on the Ingraham Trail, north of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Giant Mine was within the Kam Group, a part of the Yellowknife greenstone belt. Gold was discovered on the property and mineral claims sta ...
, Cape Dyer-DEW line and Goose Bay Air Base. The
Port Hope, Ontario Port Hope is a municipality in Southern Ontario, Canada, approximately east of Toronto and about west of Kingston. It is located at the mouth of the Ganaraska River on the north shore of Lake Ontario, in the west end of Northumberland County. ...
site has a liability of $1 billion. Port Hope has the largest volume of historic low-level
radioactive Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...
wastes in Canada, resulting from "radium and uranium processing in Port Hope between 1933 and 1988 by the former Crown corporation Eldorado Nuclear Limited and its private sector predecessors. By 2010 it was projected that it would cost well over a billion dollars for the soil remediation project, it was the largest such cleanup in Canadian history. The effort is projected to be complete in 2022. In July 2015 the $86,847,474 contract "to relocate the historic low-level
radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons ...
and marginally contaminated soils from an existing waste management facility on the shoreline of Lake Ontario to the new, state-of-the-art facility about a kilometre north of the current site." was undertaken. There is also "$1.8 billion for general inventory sites" and "$200 million for other sites." The same report claimed the inventory currently lists 24,990 contaminated sites." The federal government exercises some control over environmental protection, the "provincial and territorial governments issue the bulk of legislation regarding contaminated sites." Under the Shared-Responsibility Contaminated Sites Policy Framework (2005), the government may provide funding for the remediation of nonfederal sites, if the contamination is related to federal government activities or national security. See Natural Resources Canada (2012)


Denmark

While Denmark lacks the large land base which creates the magnitude of brownfield issues facing countries such as Germany and the U.S., brownfield sites in areas critical to the local economies of Denmark's cities require sophisticated solutions and careful interaction with affected communities. Examples include the cleanup and redevelopment of former and current ship building facilities along Copenhagen's historic waterfront. Laws in Denmark require a higher degree of coordination of planning and reuse than is found in many other countries.


France

In France, brownfields are called "friches industrielles" and the Ministère de l'Écologie, du Développement Durable et de l'Énergie (MEDDE) maintains a database of polluted sites named BASOL, with "more than 4000 sites". of about 300 000 to 400 000 potentially polluted sites total (around 100 000 ha), in a historical inventory named BASIAS, maintained by the Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maitrise de l'Energie (ADEME).


Hong Kong

Developing brownfield land is considered by the public as one of the most popular ways to increase
housing in Hong Kong Housing in Hong Kong varies by location and income. More than 7 million people live on about 1,108 km2 (427 mi2) of land in the region, making it one of the densest places in the world. History Housing by types In 2016 the ...
. The
Liber Research Community Liber Research Community is a non-governmental organization in Hong Kong that focuses on researching land and development policies. History The group was created in 2009 by postgraduates, including Chan Kim-ching, who studied geography and ...
has found 1,521 hectares of brownfield land in Hong Kong, and has found that almost 90% of existing uses of the land could easily be moved into multi-story buildings, freeing up land that could be used efficiently for housing. In June 2021, Liber Research Community and Greenpeace East Asia collaborated and found a new total of 1,950 hectares of brownfield sites, 379 more hectares than the government was previously able to locate.


Germany

Germany loses greenfields at a rate of about 1.2 square kilometres per day for settlement and transportation infrastructure. Each of the approximately 14,700 local municipalities is empowered to allocate lands for industrial and commercial use. Local control over reuse decisions of German brownfield sites ("Industriebrache") is a critical factor. Industrial sites tend to be remote due to zoning laws, and incur costly overhead for providing infrastructure such as utilities, disposal services and transportation. In 1989, a brownfield of the Ruhrgebiet became Emscher Park.


United Kingdom

In the UK centuries of industrial use of lands which once formed the birthplace of the industrial revolution have left entire regions in a brownfield status. New legislation in the UK may provide a needed incentive for brownfield cleanup and redevelopment. Cleanup laws are centered on the premise that the remediation should be "fit for the purpose". In 2018, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) reported that the 17,656 sites (covering over 28,000 hectares of land) identified by local planning authorities at Brownfield Land Registers would provide enough land for a minimum of 1 million homes, which could rise to over 1.1 million once all registers are published. There is also brownfield capacity in areas in which the green belt is in danger, particularly in the Northwest, where local authorities have identified enough brownfield land to provide for 12 years of housing demand.


United States

United States estimates suggest there are over 500,000 brownfield sites contaminated at levels below the
Superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...
caliber (the most contaminated) in the country. While historic land use patterns created contaminated sites, the Superfund law has been criticized as creating the ''brownfield phenomenon'' where investment moves to greenfields for new development due to severe, no-fault liability schemes and other disincentives. The Clinton-Gore administration and US
EPA The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
launched a series of brownfield policies and programs in 1993 to tackle this problem.


Redevelopment


Valuation and financing

Acquisition, adaptive re-use, and disposal of a brownfield site requires advanced and specialized appraisal analysis techniques. For example, the
highest and best use Highest and Best Use, or highest or best use (HBU), is a concept that originated with early economists such as Irving Fisher (1867-1947), who conceptualized the idea of maximum productivity. One of the earliest citations of the term is found in the ...
of the brownfield site may be affected by the contamination, both before and after remediation. Additionally, the value should take into account residual stigma and potential for third-party liability. Normal appraisal techniques frequently fail, and appraisers must rely on more advanced techniques, such as
contingent valuation Contingent valuation is a survey-based economic technique for the valuation of non- market resources, such as environmental preservation or the impact of externalities like pollution. While these resources do give people utility, certain aspec ...
, case studies, or statistical analyses. A 2011 University of Delaware study has suggested a 17.5:1 return on dollars invested on brownfield redevelopment. A 2014 study of EPA brownfield cleanup grants from 2002 through 2008 found an average benefit value of almost $4 million per brownfield site (with a median of $2,117,982). To expedite the cleanup of brownfield sites in the US, some environmental firms have teamed up with insurance companies to underwrite the cleanup and provide a guaranteed cleanup cost to limit land developers' exposure to environmental remediation costs and pollution lawsuits. The environmental firm first performs an extensive investigation generally in the form of desk studies and potentially further intrusive investigation.


Remediation strategies

Innovative remediation techniques used at distressed brownfields in recent years include in situ thermal remediation,
bioremediation Bioremediation broadly refers to any process wherein a biological system (typically bacteria, microalgae, fungi, and plants), living or dead, is employed for removing environmental pollutants from air, water, soil, flue gasses, industrial effluent ...
and in situ oxidation. Often, these strategies are used in conjunction with each other or with other remedial strategies such as
soil vapor extraction Soil vapor extraction (SVE) is a physical treatment process for in situ remediation of volatile contaminants in vadose zone (unsaturated) soils (EPA, 2012). SVE (also referred to as in situ soil venting or vacuum extraction) is based on mass tra ...
. In this process, vapor from the soil phase is extracted from soils and treated, which has the effect of removing contaminants from the soils and groundwater beneath a site. Binders can be added to contaminated soil to prevent chemical leaching. Some brownfields with heavy metal contamination have even been cleaned up through an innovative approach called phytoremediation, which uses deep-rooted plants to soak up metals in soils into the plant structure as the plant grows. After they reach maturity, the plants – which now contain the heavy metal contaminants in their tissues – are removed and disposed of as hazardous waste. Research is under way to see if some brownfields can be used to grow crops, specifically for the production of
biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA ...
s. Michigan State University, in collaboration with DaimlerChrysler and NextEnergy, has small plots of soybean,
corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...
,
canola Close-up of canola blooms Canola flower Rapeseed oil is one of the oldest known vegetable oils. There are both edible and industrial forms produced from rapeseed, the seed of several cultivars of the plant family Brassicaceae. Historicall ...
, and
switchgrass ''Panicum virgatum'', commonly known as switchgrass, is a perennial warm season bunchgrass native to North America, where it occurs naturally from 55°N latitude in Canada southwards into the United States and Mexico. Switchgrass is one of the ...
growing in a former industrial dump site in
Oakland County, Michigan Oakland County is a county in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is part of the metropolitan Detroit area, located northwest of the city. As of the 2020 Census, its population was 1,274,395, making it the second-most populous county in Michigan, ...
. The intent is to see if the plants can serve two purposes simultaneously: assist with phytoremediation, and contribute to the economical production of
biodiesel Biodiesel is a form of diesel fuel derived from plants or animals and consisting of long-chain fatty acid esters. It is typically made by chemically reacting lipids such as animal fat (tallow), soybean oil, or some other vegetable oil wit ...
and/or
ethanol fuel Ethanol fuel is ethyl alcohol, the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, used as fuel. It is most often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline. The first production car running entirely on ethanol was t ...
. The regeneration of brownfields in the United Kingdom and in other European countries has gained prominence due to greenfield land restrictions as well as their potential to promote the
urban renaissance The urban renaissance of the United Kingdom is the recent period of repopulation and regeneration of many British cities, including Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and parts of London after a period of inner c ...
. Development of brownfield sites also presents an opportunity to reduce the environmental impact on communities, and considerable assessments need to take place in order to evaluate the size of this opportunity.


Barriers

Many contaminated brownfield sites sit unused for decades because the cost of cleaning them to safe standards is more than the land would be worth after redevelopment, in the process becoming
involuntary park Involuntary park is a neologism coined by science fiction author and environmentalist Bruce Sterling to describe previously inhabited areas that for environmental, economic, or political reasons have, in Sterling's words, "lost their value for t ...
s as they grow over. However, redevelopment has become more common in the first decade of the 21st century, as developable land has become less available in highly populated areas, and brownfields contribute to environmental stigma which can delay redevelopment. Also, the methods of studying contaminated land have become more sophisticated and costly. Some states and localities have spent considerable money assessing the
contamination Contamination is the presence of a constituent, impurity, or some other undesirable element that spoils, corrupts, infects, makes unfit, or makes inferior a material, physical body, natural environment, workplace, etc. Types of contamination ...
on local brownfield sites, to quantify the cleanup costs in an effort to move the redevelopment process forward. Therefore, federal and state programs have been developed to help developers interested in cleaning up brownfield sites and restoring them to practical uses. In the process of cleaning contaminated brownfield sites, previously unknown underground storage tanks, buried drums or buried railroad tank cars containing wastes are sometimes encountered. Unexpected circumstances increase the cost for study and clean-up. As a result, the cleanup work may be delayed or stopped entirely. To avoid unexpected contamination and increased costs, many developers insist that a site be thoroughly investigated (via a Phase II Site Investigation or Remedial Investigation) prior to commencing remedial cleanup activities.


Post-redevelopment uses


Commercial and residential

the
Atlantic Station Atlantic Station is a neighborhood on the northwestern edge of Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States comprising a retail district, office space, condominiums, townhomes and apartment buildings. First planned in the mid-1990s and officially op ...
project in
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
, was the largest brownfield redevelopment in the United States.
Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...
, like many other cities in the region, is developing Tech Town in order to attract technology-based firms to Dayton and revitalize the downtown area. In
Homestead, Pennsylvania Homestead is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA, in the Monongahela River valley southeast of downtown Pittsburgh and directly across the river from the city limit line. The borough is known for the Homestead Strike of 1892, an im ...
, the site once occupied by
Carnegie Steel Carnegie Steel Company was a steel-producing company primarily created by Andrew Carnegie and several close associates to manage businesses at steel mills in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area in the late 19th century. The company was formed ...
has been converted into a successful commercial center, The Waterfront. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has successfully converted numerous former
steel mill A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-finishe ...
sites into high-end residential, shopping, and offices. Examples of brownfield redevelopment in Pittsburgh include: * In Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, a former
slag Slag is a by-product of smelting ( pyrometallurgical) ores and used metals. Broadly, it can be classified as ferrous (by-products of processing iron and steel), ferroalloy (by-product of ferroalloy production) or non-ferrous/base metals (by-pr ...
dump for steel mills was turned into a $243 million residential development called Summerset at Frick Park. * In Pittsburgh's South Side neighborhood, a former
LTV Steel Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) was a large American conglomerate which existed from 1961 to 2000. At its peak, it was involved in aerospace, airlines, electronics, steel manufacturing, sporting goods, meat packing, car rentals, and pharmaceuticals, a ...
mill site was transformed into Southside Works, a mixed-use development that includes high-end entertainment, retail, offices, and housing. * In the Hazelwood (Pittsburgh) neighborhood, a former Jones and Laughlin steel mill site was transformed into a $104 million office park called
Pittsburgh Technology Center Pittsburgh Technology Center (PTC) is an office park located in the South Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. PTC, on the 48 acre site of a former Jones and Laughlin Steel Mill, is a hub of advanced academic and corporate technolo ...
. * In Herr's Island, a island on the western bank of the
Allegheny River The Allegheny River ( ) is a long headwater stream of the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania and New York. The Allegheny River runs from its headwaters just below the middle of Pennsylvania's northern border northwesterly into New York then in ...
, a former rail stop for livestock and meatpacking was transformed into
Washington's Landing Herrs Island, also known as Washington's Landing, is an island in the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is officially considered part of the Troy Hill neighborhood. Rehabilitation As a result of the industrial ...
, a waterfront center for commerce, manufacturing, recreation and upscale housing


Regulation


United States

In the United States,
Brownfield regulation and development The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines brownfield land as property where the reuse may be complicated by the presence of hazardous materials. Brownfields can be abandoned gas stations, dry cleaning establishments, factorie ...
is largely governed by state environmental agencies in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 1995, the EPA launched the Brownfields Program, which was expanded in 2002 with the Brownfields Law. The EPA, together with local and national government, can provide technical help and some funding for assessment and cleanup. From 2002 through 2013, the EPA awarded nearly 1,000 grants for clean up, for a total of almost $190 million. It can also provide
tax incentive A tax incentive is an aspect of a government's taxation policy designed to incentivize or encourage a particular economic activity by reducing tax payments. Tax incentives can have both positive and negative impacts on an economy. Among the posi ...
s for cleanup that is not paid for outright; specifically, cleanup costs are fully tax-deductible in the year they are incurred. Many of the most important provisions on liability relief are contained in state codes that can differ significantly from state to state.


United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, regulation of contaminated land comes from Part IIA of the
Environmental Protection Act 1990 The Environmental Protection Act 1990 (initialism: EPA) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that defines, within England and Wales and Scotland, the fundamental structure and authority for waste management and control of emissions ...
; responsibility falls on local authorities to create a "contaminated land register". For sites with dubious past and present uses the Local Planning Authority may ask for a desktop study, which is sometimes implemented as a condition in planning applications.


See also

*
Greenfield project In many disciplines, a greenfield project is one that lacks constraints imposed by prior work. The analogy is to that of construction on greenfield land where there is no need to work within the constraints of existing buildings or infrastructure ...
* Brockton Brightfield (brownfield turned into a solar power plant) * Greyfield land *
HUD USER HUD USER is an information source containing reports and reference documents for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD USER was established by the HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) in 1978. Backgrou ...
*
Industrial nature Industrial Nature is the regeneration of natural vegetation on industrial sites; the invasion of abandoned or disused industrial sites by colonising species; or new plantings on abandoned, disused or remediated industrial sites. The underlying princ ...
*
Love Canal Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, United States, infamous as the location of a landfill that became the site of an enormous environmental disaster in the 1970s. Decades of dumping toxic chemicals harmed the health of hund ...
*
Redevelopment of Mumbai mills The redevelopment of Mumbai's cotton mills began in 1992, when efforts began to demolish the numerous cotton mills that once dotted the landscape of Mumbai, India, to make way for new residential and commercial buildings, as part of the wider mod ...
(unused mills being re-developed) *
Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse The Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse (RBC) collects, processes, assembles, and disseminates information on existing barriers that inhibit the production and conservation of affordable housing. RBC is part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urba ...
* Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act * Waste (law) * Urban renewal


References


Further reading

*


External links


United States EPA Brownfields Homepage

Environment Agency, United Kingdom
search for Brownfield

University of Vermont Press) * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20110210204726/http://www.emagazine.com/magazine/dirty-secrets-under-the-schoolyard Parents Demand Curbs on Schools Built on Contaminated Land
Photographies of French Brownfields.

Photographies of German Brownfields.

National Brownfields Conference
cosponsored by the U.S. EPA and ICMA
Sustainability Toolkit: Environmental Models




* ttp://www.cmu.edu/steinbrenner/brownfields/index.html The Brownfields Center at Carnegie Mellon University
Browninfo Methodology and Software for Development of Interactive Brownfield Databases
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brownfield Land Soil contamination Town and country planning in the United Kingdom Urban decay Urban studies and planning terminology