New Federal Funding Opens Up New Opportunities for Brownfield Reclamation Projects

AUSTIN, Texas - Aug. 4, 2022 - PRLog -- Location, Location, Location: Many Urban And Waterfront Brownfields Are Prime Real Estate Sites With Great Economic Potential

When you are shopping for a new house, it's not unusual to drive for miles exploring neighborhoods. But developers looking to build large projects often take to the air to scout out large parcels suitable for development. Such was the case with Walt Disney, who took flight over central Florida in 1963 – spying thousands of acres of undeveloped swampland close to new highways south of Orlando.

Today, we have the advantage of satellite imagery, which makes site selection much more convenient – however, you may have noticed that some of the most promising vacant real estate parcels – e.g., those near cities or located on navigable waterways – may be vacant for an important reason: they are brownfields contaminated with pollution, unable to be developed without significant remediation.

There is renewed interest in remediating brownfield sites, both from an economic and a health benefits point of view. Due to the way our cities and industries have developed over the last 100-plus years, many of these sites are sitting in prime real estate locations.

Many polluted industrial sites that were once far from city centers when they were built are now considered to be in the heart of metro areas as cities have grown around them. Other industrial sites were built on what are today considered prime waterfront sites – not because they were scenic and desirable but because they offered direct access to water power (such as rivers or dams) or navigable waters and industrial canals used to transport goods by ships or barges.

Depending on the individual circumstances, the presence of brownfields in a community can be a serious, long-term health hazard, a drag on economic development and city planning, or both.

It's for these reasons (and more) that the Biden administration has promoted and passed new funding to help remediate more contaminated brownfield sites, allowing them to become economic assets for the surrounding communities.

Brownfields, Greenfields, Greyfields, And The Superfund National Priority List (NPL)

Let's take a moment to review some definitions.

In this article, we are going to focus on brownfields, which are generally defined as having been compromised through past industrial use, generally due to significant pollution or contamination left behind that has penetrated the ground or even entered the water table.

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