On Friday September 17, 2021 Delaware Governor John Carney signed three unique bills all seeking to tackle different environmental issues, Senate Bills 2, 21, and Senate Substitute 1 for Senate Bill 24.

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Posted November 1, 2021

By Rick Miller,  Olean Times Herald (NY)

Mike John Painting Contractor Inc., is about to start one of the biggest brownfield cleanups in the city of Olean to make way for a new paint shop and administrative offices.

Company president Mike John Sr. plans to spend $9.6 million on the brownfield cleanup and construction of a 15,000-square-foot building.

The company, which has its headquarters, warehouse and paint shop at 291 Homer St., received a promise of tax breaks worth about $730,750 over 14 years from the Cattaraugus County Industrial Development Agency.

Under the agreement with the IDA, MJ Painting pledged to retain its 47 employees and create five new employee positions.

…

For the entire article, see

https://www.oleantimesherald.com/news/mj-painting-plans-to-start-franklin-street-brownfield-cleanup-next-month/article_a2e1620f-671d-5e37-a685-0dec9628288e.html

Posted October 13, 2021

By Rick Miller, Olean Times Herald (NY)

Mike John Painting Contractor Inc., is about to start one of the biggest brownfield cleanups in the city of Olean to make way for a new paint shop and administrative offices.

Company president Mike John Sr. plans to spend $9.6 million on the brownfield cleanup and construction of a 15,000-square-foot building.

The company, which has its headquarters, warehouse and paint shop at 291 Homer St., received a promise of tax breaks worth about $730,750 over 14 years from the Cattaraugus County Industrial Development Agency.

Under the agreement with the IDA, MJ Painting pledged to retain its 47 employees and create five new employee positions.

…

For the entire article, see

https://www.oleantimesherald.com/news/mj-painting-plans-to-start-franklin-street-brownfield-cleanup-next-month/article_a2e1620f-671d-5e37-a685-0dec9628288e.html

Posted October 11, 2021

The FY22 Brownfields Assessment, RLF and Cleanup Grant Guidelines are now available in www.grants.gov and on the OBLR MARC Grant Application Resources webpage along with other General Program Resources. The application submission deadline is December 1, 2021.

Prospective applicants can also access the information through the Brownfields Newsroom and Solicitations for Brownfield Grants pages.

Headquarters is planning for two National Applicant Outreach Webinars this year and will send/post the links to join the webinars when the information is available.

Wednesday, October 13, 2021 @ 1 PM ET - This webinar will discuss the FY 2022 guidelines for entities applying for:

• Community-wide Assessment Grant funding
  
• Site-specific Assessment Grant funding
  
• Cleanup Grant funding
  
• RLF Grant funding
  

Thursday, October 14, 2021 @ 2 PM ET - This webinar will discuss the FY 2022 guidelines for entities applying for:

• Community-wide Assessment Grants for States and Tribes
  

Link to Guidelines

Posted October 6, 2021

By Al Urbanski, Chain Store Age 

Two Baltimore guys named David Bramble and Peter Pinkard recently accomplished something few in town thought could be done. This month they opened Yard 56 and brought a supermarket, a gym, and several restaurants to a location that was a contaminated brownfield site since the Porcelain Enamel Manufacturing Company closed its factory there in 2006.

Bramble is the son of Joy Bramble, publisher of The Baltimore Times, and the Rev. Peter Bramble, rector of St. Katherine of Alexandria Episcopal Church, and he still lives in the house he grew up in in the Madison Park neighborhood. He worked as a real estate attorney in town before he and Pinkard formed MCB Real Estate and became developers. They now own and operate 10 million sq. ft. of properties up and down the Interstate 95 corridor, though the 20 acres of it on Eastern Avenue in Baltimore is their crowning achievement.

…

For the entire article, see

https://chainstoreage.com/retail-rekindled-former-brownfield-site-baltimore

Posted October 6, 2021

Penobscot Bay Pilot (ME)

The idea of creating a parking lot off of a narrow residential street in Rockland has no immediate future after City Council scrapped the notion during a special Sept. 27 meeting. Giving that Brownfield site a future, however, is of immediate focus for those councilors and for the City. 

The property in question was once a junkyard, and after the derelict house was demolished, someone in Public Works suggested that the site could be paved and used for parking, according to City Manager Tom Luttrell.

Through the years, as various ideas for parking options for the area were considered, the Maine Department of Transportation began to devise a grant for the 9 - 15 Rockland Street location that would include design and construction.

…

For the entire article, see

https://www.penbaypilot.com/article/rockland-council-nixes-park-and-ride-idea-turns-brownfield-remediation/152379

Posted October 6, 2021

Brownfield clean-up and offshore wind power is a great combination for New Jersey, as we learn in the Bottom Line with Jerry Keenan. 

Click here to listen to Jerry Keenan's message.

By Michael Turton, Highlands Current (NY)

A proposed zoning change could determine the future of the former Marathon Battery property, Cold Spring’s last remaining, significant tract of undeveloped, privately owned land. 

The property has sat idle for more than 40 years because of its long history of pollution, which began in 1952 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a 46,000-square-foot battery factory on the northern, 7-acre portion of the site. 

The Sonotone Corp., which operated the factory, purchased 5 additional acres at the southern end of the property in 1966, using it, in part, to dispose of toxic waste.

The Marathon Battery Corp. purchased the factory in 1969. The following year, the federal government sued Marathon to stop the discharge of toxic chemicals. 

…

For the entire article, see

https://highlandscurrent.org/2021/09/17/zoning-change-could-shape-marathon-sites-future/

Posted September 20, 2021

By John Lippman

An abandoned and sprawling machine tool factory at the gateway to downtown, long a ghostly reminder of the region’s economic decline, will finally be demolished and the site remediated thanks to a new funding program from the state to clean up some of Vermont’s worst contaminated sites.

The 270,000-square-foot former Jones & Lamson Machine Co. building on Clinton Street, aka Route 11, once employed 1,500 factory workers and was the crown of Springfield’s manufacturing hub. It will be receiving an estimated $3.7 million administered through Vermont’s Brownfield Economic Revitalization Alliance program, said Bob Flint, executive director of the Springfield Regional Development Corp., which owns the 14-acre property.

“It’s an understatement to say this is just another brownfield site. This beats them all,” Flint said Thursday in front of the entrance of the Jones & Lamson factory, now overgrown with ivy, during an event to trumpet the state setting aside money from a $210 million budget surplus for brownfield cleanup. In attendance were Gov. Phil Scott and other state, federal and town officials.

…

For the entire article, see

https://www.vnews.com/Springfield-gets-state-funding-to-demolish-and-clean-for-Jones-Lamson-brownfield-site-42502336

Posted September 20, 2021

Contact Information: EPA Press Office, press@epa.gov

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), published a draft of the first EPA-validated laboratory analytical method to test for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in eight different environmental media, including wastewater, surface water, groundwater, and soils. This method provides certainty and consistency and advances PFAS monitoring that is essential to protecting public health.

“This new testing method advances the science and our understanding of PFAS in the environment, so we can better protect people from exposure,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “This illustrates the progress we can make when working with federal partners in an all of government approach. I want to thank the Department of Defense for its leadership on this issue and for working with us to achieve this important milestone.”

A partnership between EPA and the Department of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program has produced draft Method 1633, a single-laboratory validated method to test for 40 PFAS compounds in wastewater, surface water, groundwater, soil, biosolids, sediment, landfill leachate, and fish tissue. Until now, regulated entities and environmental laboratories relied upon modified EPA methods or in-house laboratory standard operating procedures to analyze PFAS in these settings. With the support of the agency’s Council on PFAS, EPA and DoD will continue to collaborate to complete a multi-laboratory validation study of the method in 2022.

“This is one of many examples of strong EPA – DoD Collaboration on issues of national importance. Currently the Department is working with EPA, other federal agencies, academic institutions, and industry on over 130 PFAS-related research efforts, and we expect further progress in the future,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment and Energy Resilience Richard Kidd.

This draft method can be used in various applications, including National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits. The method will support NPDES implementation by providing a consistent PFAS method that has been tested in a wide variety of wastewaters and contains all the required quality control procedures for a Clean Water Act (CWA) method. While the method is not nationally required for CWA compliance monitoring until EPA has promulgated it through rulemaking, it is recommended now for use in individual permits.

Draft Method 1633 complements existing validated methods to test for PFAS in drinking water and non-potable water.

For more information on CWA Analytical Methods for PFAS, visit:

https://www.epa.gov/cwa-methods/cwa-analytical-methods-and-polyfluorinated-alkyl-substances-pfas.

For Frequent Questions about PFAS Methods for NPDES Permits, visit:
https://www.epa.gov/cwa-methods/frequent-questions-about-pfas-methods-npdes-permits. 

Background:
Draft Method 1633 complements existing Safe Drinking Water Act methods to test for 29 PFAS compounds in drinking water and a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act method for 24 PFAS compounds in non-potable water.

EPA publishes laboratory analytical methods (test procedures) that are used by industries, municipalities, researchers, regulatory authorities and other stakeholders to analyze the chemical, physical, and biological components of wastewater and other environmental samples. EPA regularly publishes methods for CWA compliance monitoring on its CWA Methods website. Doing so does not impose any national requirements to use the method. Only after EPA promulgates a CWA analytical method through rulemaking (at 40 CFR Part 136) does it become nationally required for use in NPDES permit applications and permits.

The work the agency is doing to provide new laboratory analytical methods reflects the work that the EPA Council on PFAS is undertaking to support federal, state, local, and Tribal efforts to protect all communities from the harmful impacts of PFAS contamination.

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Posted September 14, 2021