by Solar Industry

New Jersey-based utility Public Service Electric and Gas Co. (PSE&G) has filed a request with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) to extend its Solar 4 All program.

If approved, the extension would allow PSE&G to invest approximately $275 million to design and construct 10 more grid-connected projects totaling 100 MW on landfills and brownfields in its electric service territory by the end of 2021.

Solar 4 All is a 125 MW universal solar program that utilizes rooftops, parking lots, utility poles and landfills/brownfields for large-scale, grid-connected solar projects. The NJBPU initially approved the program in 2009 for 80 MW and extended it in 2013 for an additional 45 MW of solar capacity. The program currently has 115 MW in service through 174,000 pole-attached solar units and 28 centralized solar projects. The remaining 10 MW of the currently approved 125 MW total will be in service by the end of 2016.
…

For the entire article, see
http://solarindustrymag.com/pseg-seeks-regulatory-approval-for-more-landfillbrownfield-solar

Associate needed for growing boutique environmental law firm focused on site remediation and brownfields redevelopment located in Passaic County (impending move to Union County). The ideal candidate should have two to five years’ experience and be a highly motivated self-starter who works well independently and as a dynamic team player. Superior writing and oral communication, analytical skills and a strong academic record are essential. The successful candidate should also possess exceptional organizational skills (to effectively organize, track and manage client work), be detail oriented and self-motivated with a strong demand for excellent work product. Unique potential for equity compensation for entrepreneurial candidate. 

NJ Bar Admission required. Salary is commensurate with experience, health benefits and (other benefits) 401K offered. Please send resume to brtwcm@gmail.com Location: Passaic County, NJ

• Compensation: Negotiable
  
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster. br>
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
  

Hannah Moore of NYC OER and Regional Council member of the Brownfield Coalition of the Northeast (BCONE) brought a recent report by Arcadis to our attention.  It includes an “Urban Land Restoration Index” comparing cost of cleanup in cities vs. opportunities in those cities.  NYC #1.

Click here to read the report.

Photo Caption: On the left, BCONE Regional Council member Hannah Moore at the 2016 Big Apple Brownfield Awards. 

This from our friends at Brownfield Listings and their recent spring Newsletter, who called NSCW 2016 a  “high impact day”:

“Spring is upon us, the housing market is thawing and the development season is cranking up in markets across North America…  Spring also opens up the conference season. To kick things off, the Brownfield Coalition of the Northeast (BCONE) held another excellent and engaging workshop.  This year’s theme was "Imagination and Creativity in Urban Change for the NJ/NY/CT/PA Metropolitan Area,” drew 200 municipal officials, planners, developers, attorneys and environmental advocates to the New Jersey Institute of Technology for an interactive series of panels, talks and discussions.” 

By Hugh Bailey, Connecticut Post

If the location is right, pollution is no obstacle.

For some of the former industrial properties known as brownfields, new owners are willing to pay exorbitant cleanup costs to reuse the land. Elsewhere, when the payoff isn’t quite so clear, governments can work with developers on the piecemeal assemblage of a cleanup plan, which can take years to develop.

For some sites, even that much is impossible. In the wrong location, with expensive contamination and a bleak outlook, some properties will simply sit, year after year, decade after decade, as a building’s physical deterioration brings down a neighborhood and any hope of an economic rebound.

A new nonprofit enabled by legislation pending before the General Assembly is aimed at helping those properties that might otherwise be a lost cause.

…

For the entire article, see

http://www.ctpost.com/business/article/Land-bank-offers-new-hope-for-polluted-properties-7303681.php

By Andrew J. Sheaves, Buffalo News (NY)

The supervisor of the Town of Amherst has decided not to pursue his prior plan to acquire Glen Oak and Westwood and sell off part of the Audubon Golf Course, so the logical next step for the town is to approve the rezoning of the Westwood site to allow for its cleanup and development.

In July 2014, Mensch Capital Partners unveiled an innovative $238 million plan for Westwood, proposing a traditional, walkable and sustainable neighborhood, rooted in the planning goals and objectives of Town of Amherst’s Comprehensive Plan.

Following a series of Mensch-sponsored community “town hall” meetings, the Erie County Health Department asked Mensch to conduct a Phase 2 environmental study. The test results revealed traces of arsenic in the soil of the tee boxes, greens and some fairways, with concentrations that often exceed New York State Department of Environmental Conservation soil cleanup objectives for residential, commercial or industrial uses.

…

For the entire column, see

http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/viewpoints/everyone-will-benefit-from-cleanup-of-westwood-site-20160424

From the recipient of the 2016 Distinguished Service Award:  Nathaniel Montgomery, Sr. VP for Real Estate Development of the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation, SoBro.

He mentioned the good work the  Brownfield Coalition of the Northeast does along with his high praise for the NYC Brownfield Partnership.

The sold out event hosted by the Partnership was held at New York Law School in New York, NY and was attended by BCONE Board members  Hannah Moore of the NYC OER  and  Larry Schnapf, Esq. of Schnapf Law and Sue Boyle, GEI Consultants, Inc. and Executive Director for BCONE.

By Ben Lambert, Torrington Register Citizen (CT)

City officials met Monday with U.S. Representative Elizabeth Esty to discuss the ongoing redevelopment of brownfields and the economic future of the city. 

The city is currently engaged in a series of brownfields-related projects, buoyed by a state grant received earlier in the year from the state Department of Economic and Community Development. 

As part of this effort, two properties, at 100 Franklin Street, the former Hendey Machine Company and Stone Container site, 100 Summer Street, are set to be put into use, and a strategy to govern the future of brownfields sites around the city is to be created and codified.

Economic Development Director Erin Wilson said Monday that the Franklin Street property is to be developed as part of an ongoing “riverfront recapture” project, which includes the construction of a walking trail along the banks of the Naugatuck River. The grant will be used to assess the site, and how it can be better set up for future investment. Wilson mentioned the closure of the five-way intersection as a potential step.

…

For the entire article, see

http://www.registercitizen.com/article/RC/20160418/NEWS/160419601

Underground storage tanks (USTs) containing petroleum and hazardous substances are ubiquitous. Accidental releases of these substances can present risks to local residents and the environment. The purpose of this paper is to develop monetized estimates of the benefits of preventing and cleaning up UST releases, as reflected in house values. We focus on 17 of the most high profile UST releases in the United States with release discovery and other milestone events occurring at different points between 1985 and 2013. These data are the broadest analyzed for property value impacts of UST releases, as previous hedonic studies of USTs focused only on a single county, city, or subset of counties within a state. We employ a two-step methodology in which (i) site] specific hedonic regressions are estimated using a difference-in-differences approach, and then (ii)an internal meta-analysis of the resulting estimates is conducted. The spatial and temporal variation among the 17 sites improves our identification of the treatment effects by reducing local idiosyncratic biases; thus providing greater confidence to a causal interpretation of the estimated average price effects. The results suggest significant heterogeneity in the price effects across sites, but on average reveal a 3% to 6% depreciation upon the discovery of a high profile release, and a similar appreciation after cleanup. These average effects diminish with distance, extending out to2 or 3km from the site.

Click here to read the entire article.

by Sue Boyle
BCONE Executive Director & Sr. Practice Leader: Environment at GEI Consultants

What BCONE does really well is bring together experts from throughout the northeastern United States to share experiences about brownfield remediation and redevelopment laws, regulations, policies, successes, and obstacles.  You see this on display at the annual Northeast Sustainable Communities Workshop (NSWC) which consists of panels with participants from at least 3 states in the region comparing and contrasting programs and policies in their individual states.

Earlier this week, BCONE Board members from CT, DE, NJ, NY and PA had a robust conversation over the course of less than 3 hours about the definition of brownfields in their states and what the term "underutilized" means.  The exchange, which was fascinating, was prompted by the public comment period on the regulations defining "underutilized" being re-proposed by the New York State (NYS) Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).  If you attended this year's NSCW Panel on Hot Topics in the States, you heard Jane O'Connell of NYSDEC discuss the definition.

The representative from DE on the BCONE Board shared that NYS is not the only state struggling with the term. The State of Delaware has been struggling with the inclusion and meaning of "underutilized" as one of the conditions necessary to certify the site as a Delaware Brownfield, which will allow prospective purchasers liability relief for existing contamination and provide them with grant funds for investigation and potential remediation. 

New Jersey informed the group that a brownfields is defined under NJ Brownfield and Contaminated Site Remediation Act (N.J.S.A. 58:10B-23.d) as:  "any former or current commercial or industrial site that is currently vacant or underutilized and on which there has been, or there is suspected to have been, a discharge of a contaminant."  This allows the local municipality, if it chooses, to define underutilized via its Master Plan, although he wasn't aware of any municipality that has defined "underutilized" (some  have defined vacant).  

CT joined the discussion with information from Section 32-760 of Connecticut's General Statutes, which  defines a brownfield as "any abandoned or underutilized site where redevelopment, reuse or expansion has not occurred due to the presence or potential presence of pollution in the buildings, soil or groundwater that requires investigation or remediation before or in conjunction with the redevelopment, reuse or expansion of the property." CT does not link the definition to future plans and  interprets "underutilized" fairly broadly.

PA then let us know that the Commonwealth has not defined "brownfields" by statute or regulation.  PA generally assumes that any property which is (or may be) contaminated is a brownfield regardless of its current or prior use land use (industrial, commercial or residential) or current operational status (active, underutilized or abandoned).   

After this healthy exchange of information, one of NYS's representatives on the BCONE Board summed  things up by saying: "And therein lies the problem. Most state brownfield programs do not define underutilized."  The term's meaning is often borrowed from other statutes and programs. The proposed NYSDEC definition can be viewed as trying to adopt an unnaturally narrow definition that is not really linked to current conditions at a site but future use.

If this exchange and the topic interests you, go to  http://brownfieldcoalitionne.org/news/3941330 for a copy of the comments on the NYSDEC definition submitted by BCONE.

Do YOU have a topic for which you'd like to get a multi-state perspective in real time?  If you do, send it to BCONE via sboyle@geiconsultants.com and we'll circulate it among the Board members and eblast out the answers provided.