Let's face it. The Deep South, particularly the rural south, has only recently crashed landed into the Brownfield World. Like Dorothy, the rural South's view of brownfield redevelopment has only (until recently) been black and white. Brownfield redevelopment meant contamination and contamination meant a visit from the regulators and a visit from the regulators meant a roadblock to economic development. It's the classic CERCLA "strict, joint, and several" liability philosophy. Couple that with some remaining vestiges of the 1950's era suburban sprawl philosophy of "economic development" and you've got a recipe for indifference to this ZERO MATCH grant program. Why? There's an abundance of greenfields, ripe for the creation of new industrial parks and suburban neighborhoods, all connected by shiny, new Parkways paid for by State Road Aid (DOT) funding. Why bother with redevelopment when plain ole' development works? Let's not forget, though, that New Jersey IS a Brownfield. For that matter, so is Detroit; and we can't forget "
Atlantanooga" with its challenges related to sprawl. Is that really what we want down here in God's Country?
When Dorothy opened the door to the Land of OZ, everthing was in Technicolor. When you open the door to Brownfield Redevelopment, everything is GREEN, Silver, Platinum, and Gold (
LEED that is). You're gonna have to embrace these ideas if you expect to have a competitive grant application. You can get up to 5 points under the Ranking Criterion 4.c - Project Benefits-Environmental Benefits from Infrastructure Reuse/Sustainable Reuse (p. 31 of Assessment Grant Guidelines). Here are some links to help you beef up this section of your proposal:
- http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy
- http://www.epa.gov/greenpower
- http://www.energystar.org
- http://www.gov/owm/water-efficiency/index.htm
- http://www.epa.gov/owm/water-efficiency/water/index.htm
- http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/home.cfm?program_id=6
- http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater/const.cfm
- http://www.clu-in.org/download/remed/Green-Remediation-Primer.pdf
- http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/tools/tti_assess_cleanup.htm#construction
- http://www.epa.gov/cleandiesel
Good Luck!
