For many cities in the Midwest, one of the greatest challenges is how to re-develop old, abandoned industrial land. Known as ‘brownfields’ – these areas often host signs of days gone by – shells of old factories; rusting railroad tracks; or grain elevators that are falling apart. They are also often contaminated. And now a bill that was recently signed into law by President Bush will give more money to cities to clean up their brownfields. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports:
Transcript
For many cities in the Midwest, one of the greatest challenges is how to re-develop old, abandoned industrial land. Known as ‘brownfields’- these areas often host signs of days gone by – shells of old factories, rusting railroad tracks, or grain elevators that are falling apart. They are also often contaminated. And now a bill that was recently signed into law by President Bush will give more money to cities to clean up their brownfields. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has details:
The law will double the amount of funding available for fiscal year 2003. The money will help cover the costs of assessing and cleaning up brownfields. Officials are pleased with the increased funding, but they say environmental clean up is just one hurdle in re-selling, and ultimately re-using, the land. Donna Duscharme is the co-director of the Delta Institute in Chicago:
“Well, it takes an enormous amount of work and knowledge to get through a lot of the barriers that are facing the re-development of these sites. The EPA really focuses very heavily on the environmental barriers, but there are also often other barriers.”
Duscharme says these barriers include things like demolition of old buildings, debris removal, legal work to clear the land of outstanding liens, and the legwork necessary to find potential buyers for the land. These costs often can’t be re-couped in the sale of the property. So other sources of funding need to be found before the land can be re-used. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.