by Worldchanging NYC local blogger, David Leon: I was recently working the legal end of a contaminated site remediation, and the environmental consultant mentioned that if you were to dig up any given patch of dirt in New York City, you would probably find at least some low level of contamination, This would be especially true on the waterfront and canals, which were once the primary places to dump waste and other fill material. This kind of low-level contamination does seem likely, given the city’s long industrial history prior to the advent of environmental regulation. In PlaNYC, the Bloomberg administration estimates that there are 7,600 acres of contaminated sites in the city; if combined, this would cover an area half the size of Manhattan, and there is no comprehensive study or database documenting what types of contaminants are underground where. Current brownfield cleanup programs are administered mostly at the state and federal levels. These programs generally work best for large developers of highly contaminated parcels, because of the eligibility criteria for these programs. This is illustrated by the fact that only 1,900 of the estimated 7,600 acres of contaminated sites are currently in state brownfield cleanup programs. Furthermore, if a… (more)
(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Urban Design and Planning at 1:02 PM)