|
|
|
Joy in
Mudville
How an abandoned contaminated industrial site became a shiny new ballpark in Bridgeport
|
Business New Haven
3/22/1999
By: Sheila A. LaSella
|
What do the old Raybestos site in Stratford, Brass City Mall in Waterbury, Science Park in New Haven and Bridgeport's new Ballpark at Harbor Yard stadium have in common? All are brownfields - former industrial sites which were contaminated and abandoned and required expensive environmental cleanup to be returned to productive use.
There are at least 600 and probably more than 950 brownfield sites in Connecticut, according to the state's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
From asbestos to lead paint, from oil sludge to toxic chemicals, brownfields are not only costly environmental hazards of concern to public health, but part of the catalyst for urban sprawl.
Over the last 50 years the public sector has invested in infrastructure: highways, sewer lines, water lines and extension of utility infrastructure, which has encouraged the development of greenfields (pristine, undeveloped land) in suburban communities and industry abandoning urban centers, according to Robert Santy, president of the Regional Growth Partnership (RGP) in New Haven.
“There is a cost associated with duplicating infrastructure in suburbs and we also end up building schools there and closing schools in urban centers,” he says.
With sprawl, another thing that moves to the suburbs are jobs; jobs that cannot be reached by many inner-city residents who may have walked or used public transportation to reach urban employment.
Since the early 1990s, the state has taken strides to streamline remediation programs and develop initiatives to encourage cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields.
One site whose transformation has helped to bring a measure of economic vitality back to Bridgeport is the former Jenkins Valve property, which has gone through the remediation process and now houses the Bridgeport Bluefish baseball team.
The Ballpark at Harbor Yard employs more than 200 on game days and generates revenues in excess of $400,000 to the city in general funds.
Dating back to the turn of the century, Jenkins was a foundry that manufactured bronze and steel alloy valves. During the 1940s it was taken over by the Department of Defense for munitions production and finally closed for good in 1987.
The foundry was torn down thereafter, attended by a surfeit of asbestos and lead paint. The Jenkins property was targeted by the city as a contaminated site in the early 1990s due to underground tanks leaking oil-based substances.
Bridgeport then acquired the property through tax foreclosure after the company had filed for bankruptcy protection.
The Bluefish sports complex sits on a 12-acre parcel which includes two other sites that required remediation: Sprague Meter Co. and a gas station.
The cleanup process for the Jenkins property began with a soil assessment by AKRF Inc. of Norwalk, licensed environmental professionals (LEPs). The assessment employs government standards to quantify the nature and degree of contaminants.
A remediation plan is then prepared if the assessment indicates some cleanup is necessary and specifies methods to be used, time requirements and estimated cost.
The cleanup must meet DEP standards of “allowable levels of specified substances.” For instance, a higher level of cleanup for contaminated land is required for a development of a school than for, say, an industrial facility.
Working within a tight 12-month time frame, the city began to move aggressively in May 1997 and had more than 12,000 tons of dirt removed from the site. The cleanup and development costs were $19 million, which came from a combination of $7 million in city bond funds, $10 million in “Zurich money,” which was a special gift from the state, and $2 million from the ball club itself.
Along with the time issue, Bridgeport wanted to remove any suggestion that the site was dirty and therefore opted to have the 12,000 tons of dirt hauled away to a landfill, according to Mike Freimuth, the city's director of planning and economic development.
A new tool created by the legislature which was “very critical to the success” of the ballpark project, says Freimuth, was the ability to use LEPs. This legislation was enacted in 1995 to assist the DEP in expediting cleanups through review and oversight on remediation projects. Today, more than 200 LEPs aid the DEP in this process.
Previously the city would have sent a remediation plan to Hartford and then had to “get in line,” says Freimuth. Now the streamlined procedure allows LEPs to assess the site, lay out a plan, negotiate with the DEP and oversee the cleanup, thus alleviating a previously backlogged and lengthy bureaucratic process.
Following cleaning of the land, the stadium was developed by C.R. Klewin.
The two other sites that comprise the ballpark property each went through a different process. The Sprague Meter complex (now part of the parking lot) was contaminated from paint used in the production of gas meters and the treatment and cleaning of metals. However, with Sprague the owners were responsible for the cleanup. They hired their own LEPs and demolished the building. The city then purchased it.
The third property was a gas station which had old gasoline products and a series of leaking tanks in the ground. Leggette, Brashears & Graham Inc. of Trumbull cleaned some of the materials, but Bridgeport officials opted to pursue an environmental land use restriction because the area was going to be used as a parking lot.
“What we were able to do was show that [the contaminants] fell below industrial standards, and then we put a covenant on the land records that said if the area was ever disturbed [the party] would have to go to DEP to lay out a course of action and standards for remediation will be measured by use of the land.” explains Freimuth.
These two measures - flexible standards and environmental use restrictions - undertaken by the state were also critical, according to Freimuth, to making the project successful. “The project could not have been done had some of the state rules not changed,” he says.
The first major program to include state financial assistance for brownfields was the Urban Sites Remedial Action Program, created in 1992. The purpose of the program is to “identify, evaluate, plan for and undertake remediation of polluted real properties deemed vital to the economic development needs of the state,” according to the DEP. In 1998, participation was expanded to include a broader range of urban community sites.
As evidenced in the Bluefish project, the state's brownfields initiatives have proven useful in making possible the reclamation of contaminated land. But will the cleanup efforts and the reduction of urban sprawl continue?
Santy is not sure. “Urban sprawl is trending back to the center, but it is too soon to know if it is a temporary thing or the beginning of a reversal of 50 years of sprawl.” BNHWhat do the old Raybestos site in Stratford, Brass City Mall in Waterbury, Science Park in New Haven and Bridgeport's new Ballpark at Harbor Yard stadium have in common? All are brownfields - former industrial sites which were contaminated and abandoned and required expensive environmental cleanup to be returned to productive use.
There are at least 600 and probably more than 950 brownfield sites in Connecticut, according to the state's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
From asbestos to lead paint, from oil sludge to toxic chemicals, brownfields are not only costly environmental hazards of concern to public health, but part of the catalyst for urban sprawl.
Over the last 50 years the public sector has invested in infrastructure: highways, sewer lines, water lines and extension of utility infrastructure, which has encouraged the development of greenfields (pristine, undeveloped land) in suburban communities and industry abandoning urban centers, according to Robert Santy, president of the Regional Growth Partnership (RGP) in New Haven.
“There is a cost associated with duplicating infrastructure in suburbs and we also end up building schools there and closing schools in urban centers,” he says.
With sprawl, another thing that moves to the suburbs are jobs; jobs that cannot be reached by many inner-city residents who may have walked or used public transportation to reach urban employment.
Since the early 1990s, the state has taken strides to streamline remediation programs and develop initiatives to encourage cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields.
One site whose transformation has helped to bring a measure of economic vitality back to Bridgeport is the former Jenkins Valve property, which has gone through the remediation process and now houses the Bridgeport Bluefish baseball team.
The Ballpark at Harbor Yard employs more than 200 on game days and generates revenues in excess of $400,000 to the city in general funds.
Dating back to the turn of the century, Jenkins was a foundry that manufactured bronze and steel alloy valves. During the 1940s it was taken over by the Department of Defense for munitions production and finally closed for good in 1987.
The foundry was torn down thereafter, attended by a surfeit of asbestos and lead paint. The Jenkins property was targeted by the city as a contaminated site in the early 1990s due to underground tanks leaking oil-based substances.
Bridgeport then acquired the property through tax foreclosure after the company had filed for bankruptcy protection.
The Bluefish sports complex sits on a 12-acre parcel which includes two other sites that required remediation: Sprague Meter Co. and a gas station.
The cleanup process for the Jenkins property began with a soil assessment by AKRF Inc. of Norwalk, licensed environmental professionals (LEPs). The assessment employs government standards to quantify the nature and degree of contaminants.
A remediation plan is then prepared if the assessment indicates some cleanup is necessary and specifies methods to be used, time requirements and estimated cost.
The cleanup must meet DEP standards of “allowable levels of specified substances.” For instance, a higher level of cleanup for contaminated land is required for a development of a school than for, say, an industrial facility.
Working within a tight 12-month time frame, the city began to move aggressively in May 1997 and had more than 12,000 tons of dirt removed from the site. The cleanup and development costs were $19 million, which came from a combination of $7 million in city bond funds, $10 million in “Zurich money,” which was a special gift from the state, and $2 million from the ball club itself.
Along with the time issue, Bridgeport wanted to remove any suggestion that the site was dirty and therefore opted to have the 12,000 tons of dirt hauled away to a landfill, according to Mike Freimuth, the city's director of planning and economic development.
A new tool created by the legislature which was “very critical to the success” of the ballpark project, says Freimuth, was the ability to use LEPs. This legislation was enacted in 1995 to assist the DEP in expediting cleanups through review and oversight on remediation projects. Today, more than 200 LEPs aid the DEP in this process.
Previously the city would have sent a remediation plan to Hartford and then had to “get in line,” says Freimuth. Now the streamlined procedure allows LEPs to assess the site, lay out a plan, negotiate with the DEP and oversee the cleanup, thus alleviating a previously backlogged and lengthy bureaucratic process.
Following cleaning of the land, the stadium was developed by C.R. Klewin.
The two other sites that comprise the ballpark property each went through a different process. The Sprague Meter complex (now part of the parking lot) was contaminated from paint used in the production of gas meters and the treatment and cleaning of metals. However, with Sprague the owners were responsible for the cleanup. They hired their own LEPs and demolished the building. The city then purchased it.
The third property was a gas station which had old gasoline products and a series of leaking tanks in the ground. Leggette, Brashears & Graham Inc. of Trumbull cleaned some of the materials, but Bridgeport officials opted to pursue an environmental land use restriction because the area was going to be used as a parking lot.
“What we were able to do was show that [the contaminants] fell below industrial standards, and then we put a covenant on the land records that said if the area was ever disturbed [the party] would have to go to DEP to lay out a course of action and standards for remediation will be measured by use of the land.” explains Freimuth.
These two measures - flexible standards and environmental use restrictions - undertaken by the state were also critical, according to Freimuth, to making the project successful. “The project could not have been done had some of the state rules not changed,” he says.
The first major program to include state financial assistance for brownfields was the Urban Sites Remedial Action Program, created in 1992. The purpose of the program is to “identify, evaluate, plan for and undertake remediation of polluted real properties deemed vital to the economic development needs of the state,” according to the DEP. In 1998, participation was expanded to include a broader range of urban community sites.
As evidenced in the Bluefish project, the state's brownfields initiatives have proven useful in making possible the reclamation of contaminated land. But will the cleanup efforts and the reduction of urban sprawl continue?
Santy is not sure. “Urban sprawl is trending back to the center, but it is too soon to know if it is a temporary thing or the beginning of a reversal of 50 years of sprawl.” BNH
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
