Community Initiatives

Methfields
Housing/Residential Reuse
Smart Growth
Groundwork Trusts
Environmental Justice
Sustainable Redevelopment of Brownfields

Methfields

Clandestine drug labs are an increasing problem in the United States. Once seen as only a rural issue in western states, drug labs--specifically methamphetamine labs (or meth labs)--are multiplying throughout the nation and becoming a major social, economic, and public health concern. Due to this growing national concern, Congress made properties contaminated by controlled substances, such as methamphetamine, eligible for Brownfields funding. Although Brownfields redevelopment is not the primary solution to the emerging drug lab issue, the Brownfields Program can provide funding and technical assistance to assist in addressing the growing problem.


• Methfields: Brownfields Funding and Technical Assistance to Address Clandestine Drug Labs
  [PDF (338K) 2pages ]
  Publication Number: EPA-560-F-05-232
  October 2005



• Methamphetamine Lab Research Strategy Listening Session at Brownfields 2006
  [PDF (235K) 14pages ]
  November 2006

Housing/Residential Reuse

In addition to restoring former commercial and industrial sites into similar facilities, the EPA Brownfields Program facilities brownfields redevelopment for residential uses. Residential developments range from high-end new housing to affordable housing involving partners such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Home Loan Bank. Typically, the property developer works with the state, often as part of a state Voluntary Cleanup Program, to ensure that contamination at the property being redeveloped does not exceed state residential contamination levels, which are more stringent than commercial or industrial contamination levels. Redeveloping brownfields into new residential space complements the recent nationwide shift from rural to urban relocation – reducing urban sprawl and protecting greenspace.

• Success Stories: Restoring Brownfields for Residential Reuse Puts EPA Right at Home (Features Emeryville, CA, Somerville, MA, City of Virginia, MN and Twin Cities Metropolitan Council, MN Pilots)

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Smart Growth

The occurrence of urban sprawl and non-sustainable development has become a growing concern for communities across the nation. The concept of smart growth recognizes the connections between development and quality of life, leveraging new growth that complements the area while revitalizing underutilized and abandoned brownfields in established communities. Smart growth helps to protect open space and prime agricultural lands. The features that define smart growth vary from place to place and community to community. In general, smart growth invests time, attention, and resources in restoring vitality to center cities and older suburbs. Successful communities tend to have one common thread – a vision of the future and an understanding of what is important to their communities.

Smart growth is development that serves the economy, the community, and the environment. It changes the terms of the development debate away from the traditional growth/no growth question to "how and where should new development be accommodated."

Brownfields redevelopment is an integral component to smart growth. By redeveloping a brownfield in an older city or suburban neighborhood, a community can remove blight and environmental contamination, create a catalyst for neighborhood revitalization, lessen development pressure at the urban edge, and use existing infrastructure.

• Encouraging Smart Growth
• Success Stories: Sustainable Redevelopment of Brownfields - Fostering Economic Development and Protecting the Environment (Features Baltimore, MD, Cape Charles, VA, and Knoxville, TN Pilots)
• Success Stories: Green Theme Story (Sustainable Redevelopment) (Features Bridgeport, CT, Clearwater, FL, and Tacoma, WA Pilots)

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Groundwork Trusts

The Groundwork Trusts are independent, not-for-profit, environmental businesses that work with communities to improve their environment, economy, and quality of life through local action.The Groundwork USA program is built on partnership and linked together by the Groundwork USA national office, with support from the EPA Brownfields Program and the National Park Service Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program.

Groundwork USA helps people reuse brownfields for community benefit. Because the goal of most publicly funded programs is to reuse brownfields for economic development, many brownfields sites are being left behind because they are too small, surrounded by blight, or located in areas with other constraints, such as flood plains or dense residential neighborhoods. Groundwork Trusts are working to fill the gap.

• Groundwork USA
• Success Stories: Went Field Brings New Hope to Impoverished Community Bridgeport, CT

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Environmental Justice

Environmental justice is achieved when everyone, regardless of race, culture, or income, enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment. No group of people, including a racial, ethnic, or a socioeconomic group, should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies. Brownfields revitalization presents an opportunity for environmental justice to be achieved through community involvement in cleanup and reuse decisions and activities and through the leveraging of new investment and jobs in distressed communities.

• Environmental Justice
• National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC)
• Brownfields Title VI Case Studies

• Environmental Justice Publications
• Success Stories: The Brownfields Job Training Pilot Program: Fulfilling the Commitment to Environmental Justice

Sustainable Redevelopment of Brownfields

Brownfields redevelopment can also be ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable. The nature, context, and perspective of the challenges confronting Brownfields practitioners demand this new approach. By integrating the concepts of sustainable development, community involvement, risk management, and collaborative project teams with Brownfields redevelopment, Brownfields redevelopers can avoid re-creating Brownfields and continuing their legacy. (A Sustainable Brownfields Model Framework, EPA, 1999, p. i)

Characteristics of Sustainable Brownfields Projects
Publication Number: EPA-500-R-98-001
[ PDF (1M) 358 pages ]
July 1998

A Sustainable Brownfields Model Framework
Publication Number: EPA-500-R-99-001
[ PDF (541K) 146 pages ]
January 1999

The Brownfields Program Recognized By Renew America
[ HTML (3K) 1 page ]
April 29, 1999