Fields of Economic Opportunities

By Kelly Novak, Research Manager, NADO Research Foundation

Fields - the French call them “les champs” as in Champs Elyseés. Farmers grow America’s produce on them, and one of America’s favorite pastimes, baseball, is played on them. Regional development organizations are now finding that there is a new kind of “fields” emerging that offers economic opportunity and revitalization.

These new “fields” aren’t fields in the physical sense, they are actually names or categories coined by environmentally-minded entities, like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that recognize the redevelopment potential of land and buildings that are abandoned, idled, contaminated or perceived to be contaminated.

Some of the different “fields” categories - brownfields, greyfields and brightfields – signify different variances of real or perceived contaminations and their redevelopment potentials. These field categories also qualify for various state and federal cleanup and redevelopment funding/technical assistance, providing yet more opportunities.

Brownfields

Brownfields emerged in the early 90s, after court interpretations of the Superfund law required less severely contaminated sites to comply with the law’s strict regulations. Although Congress did not pass the first brownfields bill introduced in 1993, states, with EPA’s support, championed voluntary cleanup programs to offer site owners financial and technical cleanup support. Today there are 48 state voluntary programs.

EPA also began offering pilot assessments and supplemental grants, revolving loan funds and job training grants. Cooperating agencies, like Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Economic Development Administration (EDA) added brownfields related programs and offered brownfields funding opportunities.

In January 2002, the first federal brownfields law was enacted, expanding the legal brownfields definition to include mine-scarred lands and petroleum and controlled substance contamination sites, e.g., former gas stations and narcotic (methamphetamine) labs. EPA was also authorized to offer direct cleanup grants, hold exclusive funds for petroleum contaminations and increase the resources for state and tribal funding.

Brightfields

A brightfields is an abandoned or contaminated property (“brownfields”) that is redeveloped through the incorporation of solar energy. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) brightfields program addresses economic development, environmental cleanup and air quality challenges by using solar energy and bringing high-tech solar jobs to brownfield sites.

Brightfields supports a broad array of solar projects, including building-integrated solar electric systems into brownfield redevelopments. DOE offers training and technical assistance in land use planning, financing and other issues, through both their office of Energy, Efficiency and Renewable Energy staff experts and its six regional offices.

Greyfields

Greyfields are old, obsolete and abandoned retail and commercial sites, namely malls. They are becoming problematic blighted areas for communities everywhere. A 2001 study by the Congress for New Urbanism and PriceWaterhouseCoopers revealed that America already had as many as 140 regional malls in a greyfields status, with another 200 on the horizon.

As a smart growth initiative, many greyfields redevelopments incorporate mixed-use properties, providing space for housing, offices, retail and greenspace. Greyfield redevelopments have been pursued with a combination of funding from sources such as state and local smart growth funds, federal transit dollars, Main Street program coordination, private sector investors and others.

For more information contact: EPA Office of Brownfields Cleanup and Redevelopment, 202/566-2777 or visit www.epa.gov/brownfields; DOE’s Brightfields Office at 202/586-6713 or visit www.eren.doe.gov/brightfields/; Congress for the New Urbanism “Greyfields to Goldfields” report at www.cnu.org; Dennis Alvord, EDA Brownfields, 202/482-4320; visit NADO’s Brownfields Rural Resource Guide at www.nado.org.

Cape Charles, in rural Virginia, a brownfields site that was redeveloped into a sustainable technology park or eco-industrial park. DOE’s Brightfields program provided technical assistance for a solar power system. EPA brownfields and EDA provided funding support. Tenants include a solar company. There is also a birding conservation area.

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