Cleanup and Redevelopment of New York's Urban Brownfields Vol. Older urban areas across the metropolitan region and in upstate New York also have brownfield sites. Redevelopment of New York's urban brownfields has been slow. Often environmental cleanup standards impose costly solutions, liability rules scare innocent parties from taking on responsibility for cleanup and redevelopment, and financial incentives to do so are lacking.
Developers find it easier to propose development in clean and green rural areas.
EDF general counsel James T.B. Tripp is working with the Pocantico Roundtable for Consensus on Brownfields to devise policies for appropriate cleanups. Such policies would encourage redevelopment of urban brownfields rather than new development in rural forest, watershed, farmland, and wetland areas that should be protected. The Roundtable is made up of representatives of community, environmental justice, and environmental groups, cities, developers, bankers, and lawyers. In many older urban areas, the groundwater is already contaminated, treatment through pumping is not effective, and the groundwater has long since ceased to be a source of drinking water. Tripp has been working to design a process that encourages partnerships between community groups and municipalities, fosters cleanup of surface soil to protect the health of people living and working on these sites, puts appropriate restrictions on liability, and provides financial incentives for redevelopment.