Brownfields Redevelopment
Oregon Perspective on Brownfields Redevelopment
Steven Santos
Oregon Economic and Community Development Department
Industrial and commercial development provides many beneficial things for society. It has given us timber and steel for our structures, chemicals for our medicines, and technology to make our daily lives more efficient. Often, the production of these items involve the use of hazardous substances. Before there was regulation, the customary use, storage, and disposal of hazardous substances often lead to a release of contamination into the environment.
Sites with facilities that used hazardous substances are commonly known as brownfields. These environmentally challenged properties are often overlooked for redevelopment because of the liability and cleanup cost concerns associated with them. However, as solutions for dealing with these issues evolve, brownfields are more frequently examined by governments, developers, perspective purchasers, and the public for redevelopment because of their potential to simultaneously provide economic opportunity, enhance environmental quality, and contribute to community livability.
Redeveloping brownfields provides economic opportunity by reusing sites at desirable locations with existing infrastructure and facilities. Redeveloping brownfields enhances environmental quality by removing or abating threats to environmental and human health receptors. Redeveloping brownfields contribute to community livability by removing eyesores and including citizens in end use planning and remedy selection. It is for these reasons that brownfield redevelopment epitomize the win/win/win ideals of sustainability.
Though sometimes challenging, brownfield redevelopment projects bring out the best in creativity and innovation. Oregon has served as a model for creating solutions to brownfield issues and is continuing to lead the way by engaging the more challenging brownfield issues presented in rural and economically distressed communities.
Join us and help turn Oregon's brownfields into economic opportunities and green spaces.
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Relevant Sites
Oregon
Green Building Services
http://www.greenbuildingservices.com
Green Building Services is a professional consulting practice helping developers, design teams and contractors identify and adopt green building practices including site planning, building design, technical analysis and LEED documentation and submittal. |
One Thousand (1000) Friends of Oregon
http://www.friends.org
1000 Friends of Oregon is a nonprofit charitable organization, founded in 1975 by Governor Tom McCall and Henry Richmond as the citizens' voice for land use planning that protects Oregon's quality of life from the effects of growth. This site features sections devoted to Farm & Forestland, Citizen Involvement, Urban Development & Design, Coastal & Natural Resources, Affordable Housing, & Transportation. |
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality - Brownfields
http://www.deq.state.or.us/lq/cu/brownfields/
This site will provide you with information about DEQ's Brownfields Program as well as other sites of interest. |
Portland Brownfield Program
http://www.portlandonline.com/bes/index.cfm?c=35008
Welcome to the website for the Portland, Oregon Brownfield Program. Since 1996, Portland has been working to build a set of government, business and community-supported processes that foster restoration and reuse of contaminated
land, and promote revitalization of neighborhoods within Portland's North/Northeast Enterprise Zone, the Enterprise Community,
and along the Portland waterfront. Public and private partnerships within Portland have cleaned up and recycled hundreds of
acres of contaminated property and created thousands of jobs, while promoting brownfields redevelopment, pollution prevention,
and greenspace protection. |
Technical Assistance to Brownfields Communities
http://www.orst.edu/Dept/owrri/TOSC/brown.htm
The TAB Program offers services that include training for community leaders, training on risk assessment, presentations on the brownfields redevelopment process, training in assessing the nature and extent of contamination at brownfields sites, and presentations on cleanup options for contaminated sites. TAB is a program within the Center for Water and Enviromnental Sustainability at Oregon State University. |
National
HSRC Outreach Programs for Communities
http://www.toscprogram.org/
This is the Hazardous Substance Research Centers (HSRC) outreach home page. The HSRC
program based in Washington D.C. provides free technical assistance to communities with environmental contamination programs
through two distinct, but interrelated, outreach efforts: the Technical Outreach for Communities and the Technical Assistance to Brownfields Communities programs. |
Institute for Responsible Management, Inc.
http://www.instrm.org/
The inscription on the Institute for Responsible Management's (IRM's) logo states its primary institutional goals and activities -- charting and facilitating the Brownfields transformation. Central foci to that endeavor are its support of, work with, and efforts to track the significance of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Brownfields pilots. |
National Governor's Association Best Practices Center
http://www.nga.org
The NGA Center for Best Practices examines innovative state practices in brownfield redevelopment that encourage urban cleanup and revitalization. |
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - Brownfields
http://www.hud.gov/bfields.cfm
HUD is working with community organizations, the private sector, local and State governments and other federal agencies to stimulate reinvestment in communities by restoring brownfields to productive use. |
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - Brownfields
http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/
Visit EPA's extensive site on brownfields. This site includes a library of other on-line brownfield resources as well as sections devoted to projects and initiatives, laws and regulations, news and events, liability and cleanup, partnerships and outreach, and workforce development. |
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