The Northwest Environmental Business Council, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Ecology hosted an all-day conference on brownfield redevelopment, called Brownfields Redevelopment: Building Sustainable Communities, yesterday in Tacoma. Many discussions at the conference focused on how to increase partnerships between the public and private sectors in order to make the best use of brownfields, while still recognizing the importance of economics.
Panels were comprised of government representatives from local and federal jurisdictions, developers, attorneys, environmental consultants and others. Discussion topics ranged from how to secure a loan for acquisition of a brownfield property and the specifics of cleaning up environmental contamination on a site to the “green” developments that were completed on brownfields, such as LEED-certified buildings and wind farms.
Most at the conference agreed that brownfield redevelopment can be an important tool to revitalize towns and cities, but that the current economic climate is making it difficult for potential buyers and sellers of contaminated sites to invest in cleanup efforts.
As Ellen Walkowiak from the City of Tacoma stated, “economics is at the heart of these decisions” and if there is no financial benefit to cleaning up these sites, they will continue to plague neighborhoods. She seemed hopeful that a new program called the Evergreen Tacoma Initiative will help solve this problem by bringing together stakeholders to tackle environmental contamination systematically, in a way that will benefit all parties involved and encourage brownfield redevelopment.
Stay tuned for more details on this initiative in an upcoming feature.
