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ENVIRONMENT: Where's the Money?
Connecticut has the laws in place to redevelop contaminated sites. Now it just needs investors.
Alfred Smith Jr. is an attorney with Murtha, Cullina, Richter & Pinney in New Haven.
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Business New Haven
11/15/1999
By: Michael C. Bingham
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What would you identify as the top two or three environmental challenges facing our region in the next few years?
In terms of environmental media, I think air issues are going to dominate. And there are really two factors that play into that, the first and most significant being transportation. The vast majority of air emissions come from vehicular sources, so it's transportation-related. Both the region and the nation have to come to grips with this, because with air we're not really masters of our own fate because of the way that the winds blow. We're at the mercy of the Midwest. In the last couple of years there have been very contentious discussions going on pitting, not even Democrats against Republicans, but Democrats against Democrats and Republicans against Republicans, breaking down along regional lines. So I see transportation as a big issue relating to that.
What's the second factor?
The whole idea of energy deregulation. Well, the markets have all opened up and environmental lawyers, myself included, have made a great living by allowing the market to dictate environmental terms. With deregulation, people will seek to economize and you're going to find an emphasis in the Midwest on trying to run the older big coal-fired plants more and more - creating more and more emissions floating our way.
Now why will they be generating more?
Because they're the most economical source of power. Of course, Northeast Utilities, Connecticut Light & Power and of course United Illuminating are basically gone as we have known them. In the past few years we have seen a number of merchant plants going up and running into the grid. And that's not a terrible thing. These new sources have to meet more stringent standards than the old ones. So even if we have an overcapacity of generation, which is a theoretical possibility, that might be tempered a little bit by the fact that the excess capacity is relatively low-polluting, high-efficiency units. So I see those as big issues.
What about brownfields issues?
Everyone like to talk about brownfields, but nobody likes to do very much about it. As usual, it will be the market rather than the government that finally makes that happen. And I can see it happening, especially if the economy keeps going. We are simply running out of space [for new development].
As most of the development in Connecticut takes place outside of the major city limits, what's going happen to all of the brownfields - not to mention simply abandoned property - left in the cities?
You've got a lot of government money coming in for open-space development, and that's obviously going to decrease the availability of suburban land for development. It's also going to drive up the price of available suburban land for development. At some point it's going to make economic sense to go back into the cities, where the infrastructure is still there - especially in terms of transportation - to make a go.
Of course, technology is starting to have an impact on commercial space needs.
Who know what the workplace of the future will be like? Maybe that model holds true for a traditional manufacturing base. What I think we're starting to see more of in Connecticut, though more frequently elsewhere, is sort of the reverse commute, where young professionals are living in cities and working in suburbs. Maybe our economy is going to create new land-use issues, where companies like the suburban campuses, but their workers like the life of the inner city - especially the younger workers.
What's the probable impact of large-scale New Haven Harbor development - a mall, shops, restaurants, a marina - likely to be on the harbor as an environmental system?
I can't see that there would be a huge impact. With that kind of development you're going to see storm water run-off from paved surfaces. And you've already got the harbor ringed by I-95, by oil terminals, power plants. I'm sure there will be some marginal increase in run-off contamination. I'd be willing to bet - and I'm not involved in the mall development in any official way - they'll put in some fairly sophisticated storm water-treatment and -collection equipment there.
Getting back to brownfields, does Connecticut have most of the right legal mechanisms in place to be able to move forward in remediating and making brownfields productive again, or do we need to legislate more?
I think they've got the laws in place. We can and will talk about tweaking them a little bit. The laws are there - the only thing that's not there is the capital [to redevelop them]. State funding to date is a drop in a bucket. In order for brownfields to work, the problems are not with the laws. The problems are with attracting capital: When people are willing to invest in the center cities again, that's when brownfields will get off the dime. The laws aren't the problem. We've fixed 95 percent of the legal issues.
Is there anything we should be thinking about in terms making the region's rivers more useful for recreational purposes?
You can probably do anything now but eat the fish. I think that right now there's flow, and there's quality, and there are recreational issues associated with each. For the flow, within certain high thresholds, quality is not as important. You can canoe and kayak and do all that stuff in the rivers, even if they're not supporting a vibrant fish resource. Cleaning up the rivers for habitat-related issues - that's a real long-term problem. Part of the problem is controlling run-off. Connecticut and the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] began a joint initiative within the last three or four years concerning Long Island Sound. A lot of that was geared, not only toward upgrading the sewage treatment plants, but also controlling run-off from upstream. In farms, the fertilizer contains high nitrogen that runs off into the river. The nitrogen deprives the marine habitat of oxygen and the [organisms] die.
Michelle Beck contributed research and assistance to the articles above.
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