by Cierra Johnson, WKBW TV-& News (Buffalo, NY)

LACKAWANNA, N.Y.  - Wednesday night, those living in the city of Lackawanna were updated on a state funded project designed to revitalize the now desolate area were Bethlehem steel once stood.

The meeting was the first in a series of informational gatherings addressing future development of the city’s first ward - specifically the areas near Ridge road, Route five and the waterfront.

The first portion of the informational broke down the process the state DEC is using to select, clean and develop underutilized, vacant or brownfield sites.

…

For the entire story, see

http://www.wkbw.com/news/neighbors-in-lackawanna-hear-update-on-brownfield-cleanup

Editorial, Batavia Daily News (NY)

Batavia’s Pathway to Prosperity has been a hard road to find. All the involved parties knew where they were and where they wanted to go; the trick was in getting everyone to agree on how to get there, and finding enough gas money to make the trip. With the county Legislature’s approval last week, the city is fueled up, ready to go and take along the rest of the county as a passenger.

The Legislature was the third of the three taxing entities that needed to sign on to Batavia’s Pathway to Prosperity Redevelopment Fund. The city and the city school district had already approved participation in a program that would take half of the tax revenue from increased property values for certain projects and put them into a fund for infrastructure and construction work in future developments. The area targeted is the Brownfield Opportunity Area, where development is sorely needed if the city is to move toward prosperity.

…

For the entire editorial, see

http://www.thedailynewsonline.com/bdn06/a-positive-pathway-20160222

By Molly Callahan, Meriden Record-Journal (CT)

MERIDEN - Between cleanup grants, Transit-Oriented District planning and implementation grants, and Choice Neighborhood grants, the city has received more than $24 million in state and federal money for downtown Meriden in recent years.

Any visit downtown yields the sights of a city in transition, with construction in almost any direction one looks. The former Hub site is nearing completion as a flood storage basin and park; a new train station on State Street is taking shape; a Meriden Housing Authority and Westmount Development Group joint venture at 24 Colony St. is springing up; 11 Crown St., 116 Cook Ave., and the former Factory H site are all nearing cleanup and demolition; and residents of the Mills Memorial Apartment complex are leaving and the buildings are about to be torn down.

All this, while year after year, residents urge elected officials to attract more businesses and more private development to lighten the tax burden on homeowners.

…

For the entire article, see

http://www.myrecordjournal.com/meriden/meridennews/8479300-129/brownfield-cleanup-grants-helping-reshape-downtown-meriden.html

by Eve Britton, Bristol Pres (CT)

BRISTOL - A new “ultra-clean” power plant is being envisioned at an old contaminated scrap-metal yard on Middle Street.

Officials at FuelCell Energy in Danbury have begun negotiations with the city to build the green-energy generation grid a block south of ESPN.

The 15-acre city-owned site, at 894 Middle St., has been designated a Brownfield - a contaminated site eligible for federally funded rehabilitation - by the state.

FuelCell Energy officials have expressed interest in leasing between two and three acres on the site to support seven to 12 units, producing anywhere from two to 20 megawatts of power.

Those numbers could change. “It frankly hasn’t been determined yet,” said Frank Wolak, vice president for government and business, about the company’s plans.
…
For the entire article, see
http://www.centralctcommunications.com/bristolpress/article_8b6b29ec-d130-11e5-885c-470c822cf026.html

by Bill Leukhardt, Hartford Courant (CT)

SOUTHINGTON – Cleanup work should begin soon at the former Beaton and Corbin plumbing fixture factory, vacant since 1989, marred by severe industrial pollution and gutted by an 2003 arson fire, town economic development director Louis Perillo said Friday.

A $400,000 state grant awarded Wednesday for the job will allow remediation to begin so a private developer can buy the property and build a 13,000 square foot office retail complex on the 3-acre lot, he said.

"We're really excited about this," Perillo said of the pending reuse of a prime North Main Street lot that's been an eyesore for decades. Some of Perillo's relatives once worked at the factory, one of many heavy industrial businesses here that provided jobs for decades until those firms closed shop in the 1980s.

For the entire article, see

http://www.courant.com/community/southington/hc-southington-brownfield--grant-0213-20160212-story.html

by Adam Shanks, Berkshire Eagle (MA)

NORTH ADAMS - Developers of the Greylock Mill can move forward with the cleanup of the former industrial site without fear of liability for the contamination.

The project, along with two others in the state, has been accepted into the Brownfields Covenant program, according to the state Attorney General's Office.

Under the program, the developers will enter a special Covenant Not to Sue agreement, which will reduce its liability as it revitalizes the massive, but environmentally contaminated complex on State Road.

"The covenant process was critical to understanding and containing the risks associated with the pre-existing conditions of the site," said Salvatore Perry, developer for the project. "The meetings we had with experienced professionals at [the Department of Environmental Protection] increased awareness among the many stakeholders, and fostered a collaborative dynamic to shape a reasonable plan that will clean up the Greylock Mill site."

For the entire article, see

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/local/ci_29465490/north-adams-greylock-mill-project-accepted-into-brownfields

by Bill Leukhardt, Hartford Courant (CT)

SOUTHINGTON - A company that prepares former industrial sites for eventual sale to developers is now involved in the tricky job of cleaning the polluted, fire-scarred Beaton & Corbin factory site.

The nonprofit Connecticut Brownfields Landbank won town council approval Monday night to help the town clean and resell the 3-acre site, owned by a now-bankrupt corporation that went out of business in 1989.

The town is owed more than $94,000 in back taxes by the defunct owner. Ownership is in limbo but town officials will not foreclose because it means Southington would then own the land and be legally responsible for cleaning industrial wastes that soaked into the dirt during the plumbing factory's decades of operation.

For the entire article, see http://www.courant.com/hc-southington-brownfield-clean-0127-20160126-story.html

Information from the New Partners for Community Revitalization

On January 14th, Governor Cuomo announced his budget proposal for 2016, and it includes new spending for Brownfield Opportunity Areas (BOA) program participants and other communities struggling with revitalization.

The New Partners for Community Revitalization (NPCR) has been following the BOA program from its inception, and we know that it works. (See NPCR's Albany Times Union Op-Ed, published on the morning of the Governor's State of the State). As the only Statewide program in the country that drives community-based revitalization in poorer neighborhoods burdened with brownfields, the BOA program has provided hope and real economic uplift across the State. And now Governor Cuomo has endorsed the program by providing new BOA funding for the first time since he took office.  

In yesterday's budget announcement, there was important news for low-income communities struggling with revitalization. NPCR is particularly excited about the Governor’s decision to begin funding Brownfield Opportunity Areas (BOA) grants after a three year hiatus. The new funding - $2 million for 2016 – will be part of the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), a logical funding source for a program designed to get contamination cleaned up and communities rebuilt after decades of post-industrial blight. 

There was more good news for the same communities that the BOA program was designed to help.The Governor is proposing to increase spending on municipal parks from the $15,750,000 made available in 2015 to $20 million in 2016, half of which is earmarked specifically for inner-city/underserved communities. Likewise, of the $15 million announced for waterfront revitalization - up from $12.5 million - $10 million is carved out for inner city/underserved communities. The Administration will also grow its environmental justice program; the Governor is proposing $7 million in spending for another new EPF category, an environmental justice initiative to be developed with input from the EJ community.

All of these programs are in addition to a large infrastructure investment the Governor has proposed for downstate, and new competitive grants for upstate "downtown" revitalization.

This is all good news, but more needs to be done.The BOA program is burdened with duplicative steps and long delays in funding; it needs to be streamlined. There is also a need for a pre-development funding cycle once planning completed, to help communities begin to implement their plans and work with private investors. NPCR will be looking to the Senate and the Assembly to reintroduce A.7970, Brindisi/S.5341 Avella to streamline and strengthen the BOA program. We will need your help to get it passed.

It must also be said that the $2 million to be made available for BOA grants, though very welcome after years of no funding, is not nearly enough to match both need and readiness to move communities through the BOA process, or to provide for the brownfield assessments that are key to moving forward with development. We will be talking to the Governor and Legislative leaders about increasing this amount in the final budget agreement.

NPCR heartily thanks all of you who have written to the Governor and your legislators about the importance of the BOA program. Please keep those communications going!

by Anastasios Lazaropoulos

What’s harder to sell than a story about a bronze rat statue?  A Brownfield property.*

Brownfields, underutilized but valuable properties sometimes littered with environmental contamination, are the hardest properties to sell in this day and age. The fear of coming under fire from federal statutes like CERCLA or RCRA keep many developers at bay. The developers that take the challenge often end up with a nice payout at the end of the day but only after navigating the arduous process of Brownfield remediation. For these developers, even before the remediation, comes the hard part: How do you find one of these sites for sale and is there an inkling of what lurks within the potential Pandora’s Box of this type of rehabilitation?

In comes Mr. Dan French, an attorney turned CEO who’s advised DOW 30 companies and small rural cities alike and saw the same issues holding Brownfields back. A more difficult due diligence process, a disconnect between buyers and sellers of these sites and an overall broken system to obtain the information about the sites themselves. With his extensive knowledge of real estate and a strong social mission to assist those in the public sector challenged by Brownfield issues came BrownfieldListings.com.

Brownfield Listings is an online self-listing service for Brownfields and other development sites, currently in its beta stage and launching its full release later this month (January 2016). Sellers and organizations from all over the U.S. and its territories are able to post their Brownfield sites in an organized and easy to understand system. Each listing calls for essential details like what kind of pollution is on the property or whether or not any work has been done. Listers can upload documents including photos and aerials of the site, and tag its current status and property conditions. In this national marketplace, buyers can contact sellers directly regardless of their location, expanding the market and giving more chances for these sites to get cleaned up by organizations with the right know-how.

The platform provides much of its functionality for free, such as signing up, creating organizations and posting basic listings. Brownfield Listings also provides premium products like the premium listings, which are shareable and include a “Project Board” property listers can use to daylight even more information online. This project tool includes a newsfeed to share updates on project progress, plans, and needs as well as an optional forum section, for public engagement, professional advice, and even recommendations to be posted. Also included is a “Diligence Repository,” which is a simple and customizable data room to organize documents, images, and other due diligence materials. These premium tools come with a $44.99 monthly subscription, with portfolio and public sector discounts available.

The best part about this website, is the fact even with all this innovation, Brownfield Listings isn’t content sitting on its laurels. The team at Brownfield Listings is constantly working to simplify the redevelopment process and develop more powerful tools. Having recently launched “Portfolios”—sites grouped by owner, geography or type—French expressed excitement for the upcoming Brightfield Portfolio. Brightfields are sites great for renewable solar energy systems. By posting in the Brightfield Portfolio, listers will make it much easier to market to solar developers who can more easily find sites, investigate them and connect directly to the lister.

Expect much more to come. Brownfield Listings provides a nexus for every developer and public and private sector Brownfield owner to connect online and exchange information, redeveloping more properties, cleaning up more contaminated sites and helping the economy and the Environment. Their easy to use website is bridging the brownfield gap and driving market innovation forward into the future. Visit this most excellent website at: https://brownfieldlistings.com.

*(To understand this obscure reference, please click here AFTER you read the article: http://www.jokesabout.net/lawyers-the-bronze-rat).

The last of nearly 200 electricians and laborers at a Mount Holly landfill finished last week, leaving behind a sprawling solar farm that will capture the sun's rays and convert them into energy.

The solar farm atop the former L&D Landfill has begun silently churning out about 12.9 megawatts of energy. That's enough electricity to power about 2,000 homes, PSE&G officials say.

"It's our largest solar farm in New Jersey," said Todd Hranicka, director of Solar Energy for the utility company, as rows and rows of 42,000 panels were being installed on a gray day last month. In recent days, a direct "interconnection" was made between the panels and the grid. 

Francis Sullivan, a PSE&G spokesman, said the solar farm is in full operation and "only needs maintenance every six months." Snow, rain and wind typically do not create any problems for the panels, but minor adjustments may need to be made, he said. 

The interconnection was performed by linking the wires in the solar panels to a line of wires underground that travel up a single utility pole at the edge of the site, Sullivan said. The solar energy directly enters the grid, he said, mingling with the current traveling into peoples' homes. "It's hard to say exactly where the electrons go, exactly, but they would go into homes in the surrounding area," in Burlington County, Sullivan said. There's no storage system, so the amount generated depends on how sunny the day is and also the length of the day, he said. The output is also calculated by considering the amount of solar power generated by each panel, the average amount of electricity used per household, and other factors, Sullivan said.