Public Health

Plan brownfield cleanup and redevelopment projects to improve the quality of life for children, elderly, impoverished, people of color, immunocompromised and others in the community.

In areas with one or more brownfields, the presence of multiple hazards pose public health threats to the community. Considering public health and reducing exposures to those nearby when addressing brownfields will help protect your community and its vulnerable populations. Adding new assets (parks, grocery stores, etc.) in the community can contribute to improving public health in the revitalization process.

It is important to research and map how environmental, historical, physical, social and economic factors related to the site and surrounding area directly and indirectly affect people’s health. Understanding a brownfield's location, history and context can help you:

Identify past activities, use of materials and disposal practices
Anticipate contaminants that could pose public health and environmental risks
Plan reuse and revitalization to help improve quality of life and public health

Incorporating public health improvements into the planning for brownfields assessment, cleanup and reuse can bring your community together and strengthen the redevelopment.

Reducing Public Health Risks

Brownfields pose various threats beyond those that result from exposure to contaminants. These threats challenge the overall public health of a community now and in the future. These individual threats can compound and potentially increase the impacts on individuals and the affected community. Steps in the revitalization process can help reduce these risks.

Safety Risks

Sites with safety risks may include:

Abandoned and derelict structures
Open foundations and operating electricity at structures
Deteriorating infrastructure or equipment due to lack of maintenance or vandalism
Illegal or criminal activity associated with abandoned sites
Improper waste disposal or dumping
Abandoned mines and mine waste piles

Brownfield sites in or near flood zones, vulnerable coastal, drought hazard or wildfire-risk areas or natural hazard areas are of concern due to the potential to spread or mobilize contaminants and contribute to structural deterioration.

Social and Economic Impacts

Brownfields with higher crime, vagrancy or vacancy rates add to stigma and public health hazards. Perceived risks to safety and reduced investment lead to declining property values, straining the local government's ability to provide services in brownfield communities. Reduced care and access to services and lost community connections or human social capital often add to a deteriorating quality of life for residents in brownfield areas.

Environmental Health Risks

Soil and groundwater contamination, migration of contaminants, emissions deposited and wastes dumped on-site or hazards contribute to risks. These risks may result from industrial production, commercial and residential activity, transportation and goods movements. They can also add and exacerbate potential biological, physical or chemical dangers from nearby brownfield sites or create additional brownfield sites.

Effects of Climate Change

1. Pavement and dark, heat-absorbing materials 2. Lack of plants and green space

These contaminated buildings are brownfield sites. Free technical assistance or brownfield grants can help communities investigate, assess, clean, and plan safe and resilient reuses. Reuses can reduce over-paved and under-planted spaces and replace dark materials, roofing or pavements that absorb heat and raise nearby temperatures, which otherwise may pose health risks to residents.
1. Use lighter color and reflective pavement and materials 2. Plant trees, add water features and expand green space

Cleaning brownfields brings attention and investment for resilient reuses. Adding plants and trees to buildings and public areas expands greens space, bringing cooling and visual benefits. Replacing or reducing areas covered with dark materials with light color, reflective coated materials can reduce heat absorption and increase reflection. The addition of a fountain, pool, splashpad or water elements can bring a welcome, cooling features for play.
1. Potentially contaminated brownfield site 2. Paved, impervious site and road areas 3. Poor drainage for stormwater management

Increased frequency and intensity of flooding at potentially contaminated brownfields, like abandoned gas stations, can affect groundwater levels, equipment and move surface and subsurface contamination. Paved areas without spaces to safely manage contaminant movement or to direct stormwater can increase risks.
1. Remove and reduce contaminants to clean the site 2. Add safe, pervious surfaces for walking or biking 3. Improve drainage and stormwater management

Remove contaminants to clean the brownfield site and reduce contaminant movements. Plan to redirect water off site. Add bioswales and curb cuts to create or expand areas for drainage and stormwater management and previous pavements. Plan safe reuse for people to minimize exposure risk and create or expand areas for drainage and stormwater management.
1. Contaminant migration 2. Shoreline erosion, site, infrastructure and storm damage

Coastal brownfields are vulnerable from surface flooding, sea-level rise, storm surge, saltwater intrusion and coastal erosion and infrastructure damage. Site contaminants may move and impact nearby areas from eroding shorelines, rising seas and failing structures. Assessment, cleanup and reuse planning should reflect future sea level rise and storm projections for resilient reuses.
1. Clean contaminants and improve infrastructure 2. Provide shoreline protection with nature-based solutions 3. Expand living shoreline with salt tolerant native plants

Cleanup of a shoreline contaminated brownfield reduces environmental and public health risks from contaminant movement, structural hazards, and sea level rise. Reuse planning can incorporate resilient approaches that reflect changing climate projections. Adding resilient features and salt tolerant native plants will expand protective ecological restoration, natural area amenities, recreation options, and build spaces for community use.

Climate change is affecting public health by altering the frequency or intensity of extreme weather events. Increased flooding or rising sea levels may move groundwater contamination, surface runoff or other wastes from brownfield sites closer to people. This exacerbates potential biological, physical or chemical dangers. For example, higher temperatures can translate into dangerous heat in communities which are often characterized by heat-absorbing paved areas, limited tree canopy and vegetation or low access to air conditioning or cooling.

From extreme heat to rising sea levels, climate change can have disproportionate effects on underserved and overburdened populations. Addressing these disparities is key to long-lasting climate change solutions.

What we can do to help protect our communities:

Understand the risks to people’s health, including those most at risk
Identify the actions or behaviors that negatively affect a population's health
Take steps to reduce climate impacts, such as:
- Introducing more trees or vegetation
- Setting up cooling centers and expanding residential cooling options in impacted areas
- Improving energy efficiency and retrofitting residential structures
- Constructing green buildings
- Providing walking, biking, active and public transportation choices

Managing Health Risks

Knowing and raising awareness of the environmental contaminants or hazards at a brownfield site can help you assess the potential health and safety risks to the community. It can also help reduce liability concerns and the costs of cleaning up brownfields.

Throughout reuse planning, involving residents, community leaders, elected officials, municipal health centers and others impacted by a brownfield can alleviate public health concerns.

Community Engagement

Prioritizing community input regarding safety, social, environmental and health concerns can ensure that assessment, cleanup and revitalization create a flourishing space for current and future residents. These are useful opportunities to discuss community strengths and needs, assets to preserve and ways to meet future resiliency requirements.

Ways to engage the community include:

Reaching out to organizations such as youth groups, school teachers, churches and nonprofit organizations
Using public notices in newsletters, newspapers or community bulletin boards
Organizing neighborhood events or using existing local government meetings to discuss potential hazards or risks and the steps involved for assessing, cleaning up and reusing the site
Establishing a community advisory board to identify and discuss issues that require long-term investment

Other ways to inform your redevelopment planning include analyzing any existing community health plans or health agency-led assessments. Working with health agencies allows partners to collect or link baseline health and environmental measures to inform redevelopment planning options. For example, health monitoring or health impact assessment results can reveal limited access to health care services, few designated green spaces, lack of sidewalks or food access for the community near a brownfield. This can highlight the need for increased health care services, parks, trails and fresh food markets or grocers during site redevelopment planning.

Local leader and investor attention to equitable development can help prevent displacement and create local avenues for employment and affordable housing that strengthen the local economy. This reinvestment may include supporting new small businesses that add essential services such as access to health care to meet the needs of residents. Fresh and healthy food providers or food production opportunities can contribute to community and commercial activities focused on safely restoring vacant lands.

Residents and local government officials may wish to address safety or crime issues near brownfields or high-vacancy areas impacted by decreased investment. Community partnerships that bring education, skills development, work experience and new jobs can provide new opportunities for communities living around a brownfield. In addition, community engagement can inform areas in need of increased visibility and lighting, and improve community perception.

Health Monitoring

Health monitoring is completed at all stages of a brownfields revitalization project. During the assessment stage, EPA’s Brownfields Grant recipients report past property uses and contaminants present. At the cleanup stage, contaminants are removed or capped to reduce exposures. The type of cleanup depends on the planned reuse, law, policy and program requirements and site-specific factors such as contaminant levels and distribution. Contact your local, state or tribal environmental regulators and public health agencies as part of your brownfields program activities.

Local government recipients of an EPA Brownfields Grant are eligible to use up to 10 percent of total grant funding for health monitoring activities associated with known hazardous substances contamination at a brownfield site. Health monitoring activities must be conducted in direct partnership with your local, state or tribal public health agency. Performing health monitoring activities for a hazardous substance-contaminated site will identify and address potentially harmful exposures to residents.