From brownfield to eco-park at ReVenture

by John Macaulay
Greener Ideal
January 13, 2013

If all goes to plan, the city of Charlotte, NC will one day be home
to an ambitious environmental initiative called ReVenture Park.

The project could also become a model for innovative redevelopment of
industrial brownfields.

The ReVenture Park plan calls for a large renewable energy complex at
a 700 acre site along the Catawba River.  Facilities for waste-to-
energy, wastewater treatment, solar energy and R&D will rise from the
ruins of an old textile dye factory - half a million square feet of
industrial space.

The initiative will repurpose extensive infrastructure already in
place, including railway tracks, multiple electricity substations and
transmission lines, and a 360 million gallon containment pond. A
portion of the ReVenture Park property is reserved for natural
wildlife habitats.



...

For the entire article, see
http://www.greenerideal.com/alternative-energy/0113-from-brownfield-
to-eco-park-at-reventure/

FREE WEBINAR: Community Engagement for #Brownfields

Community Engagement for #Brownfield #Redevelopment

Wednesday, February  20, 2013 @ 10:00AM EST

This webinar will be hosted by representatives from NJIT’s TAB Team of Experts, and cover a range of topics including:

• Purpose and benefits of community engagement
• The spectrum of “involvement” – what are we really talking about?
• Who’s a stakeholder and how do you find them?
• Engagement formats
• Dealing with Challenging situations

"NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED"  If you would like to participate please send your email address to svroom@njit.edu and we will provide you with the appropriate URL information.

EJ/Community Scholarships for #Brownfields 2013 May 15-17 in Atlanta

Source: http://www.cpeo.org

The Center for Public Environmental Oversight has received funding 
from U.S. EPA and the Goldstein #Brownfield Foundation to provide a 
limited number of scholarships for environmental justice and other 
community participants in the Brownfields 2013 Conference in Atlanta, 
Georgia May 15-17, 2013. See www.brownfieldsconference.org.

We will provide two (one or both) types of assistance for people who 
are accepted into the scholarship program after submitting the 
attached or linked application.

1.  We will provide a $100 discount on conference registration, which 
is $125 for community participants. Each person is responsible for 
his/her own registration, including a payment of $25. We will provide 
selected applicants with instructions for registering with the discount.

2. We will be making reservations and paying directly for two-night 
hotel stays at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center. Scholarship recipients 
are still responsible for incidental expenses at the hotel.

Note than there will be no registration charge for the meetings of 
the Environmental Justice Caucus, which will be held at the Omni 
Hotel the evenings of Wednesday, May 15 (main caucus) and Thursday, 
May 16 (informal debrief).

We will not be providing any additional travel assistance.

We will give preference to people from the Southeast region, but not 
to participants who live close enough to stay at home during the 
conference. Because we expect many more applicants than we can 
support, we will strive to distribute the scholarships among 
organizations and communities.

Please fill out and submit the attached/linked application by April 
15, 2013. We plan to notify awardees by April 22, 2013. If you are a 
speaker and need to know earlier, please let us know.

If the application is not attached, you may download it from 
www.cpeo.org/BF13ScholarshipAp.doc .

Webinar: Matching Funds for MAP-21: February 7

The Safe Routes to School National Partnership will host a webinar on February 7
 from 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM (EST) titled "Matching Funds for MAP-21: How states and
communities are pulling together match funding for MAP-21 grant applications." Since
MAP-21 (the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, which funds surface
transportation programs) now requires a 20% match from local communities, this webinar
will discuss the rules on matching funds and how local communities can raise them.
Speakers include: Margo Pedroso, Safe Routes to School National Partnership; Julie
Walcoff, Ohio Department of Transportation; and Jenna Berman, Bicycle Colorado.
Register for the webinar here

Tulsa's Area Wide Planning Brownfield Grant

 

The City of Tulsa has completed a two-year project using a Brownfields Area wide Planning Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to identify Brownfields and create strategies for their redevelopment. The final report is available online. Throughout this project, public involvement was critical, and six public meetings were held to receive information and comment from citizens. Public comment, combined with expertise from a Neighborhood Advisory Committee and a consultant chosen by the City of Tulsa, provided a consensus for selection of six key Brownfield sites recommended for cleanup and redevelopment.

Mississippi Economic Redevelopment Act

Senate Bill 2147 (http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/2013/pdf/history/SB/SB2147.xml ) has been introduced in the Mississippi State Senate that would give Mississippi "a competitive redevelopment incentive to successfully entice private sector developers to cleanup and reuse brownfield sites."  SB 2147 includes a provision for removing the December 31, 2009 sunset provision to revive the Act and expanding the definition of “contaminated site” to include all brownfield sites within the State which should allow this economic redevelopment incentive to be utilized statewide.

Federal Brownfields Tax Incentive Not Extended by Congress

The federal brownfields tax incentive was not included in the recent tax bill passed by Congress. In August, when the Senate debated the "tax extenders bill," the Brownfield Tax Incentive was sacrificed for another provision and the bill passed, without the BF Tax Incentive.  It is predicted that the BF Tax Incentive is gone and will not resurface any time in the near future.

Rejuvenating DeLeon Springs, Florida

By. L Siegel
January, 2013

Some people believe that DeLeon Springs, Florida, is the Fountain of 
Youth that Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon supposedly sought in 
the 16th Century, but today it?s the surrounding unincorporated 
community that is in need of rejuvenation. At first glance, a plume 
of underground petroleum contamination appears to be preventing 
redevelopment. However, the challenge faced by the DeLeon Springs 
Community Association, Inc. is complicated by issues associated with 
the widening of U.S. Highway 17, which serves as the community?s main 
thoroughfare, and the lack of modern water and sewer utility services.

To download the 4-page, 1.2 MB report, go to http://www.cpeo.org/pubs/ DeLeon.pdf

EDR's Survey on Brownfield Redevelopment Market

#Brownfields #redevelopment is slowing making its way up the list of top client sectors with highest #demand - http://bit.ly/TDk8nG

WEBINAR: January 16, 11AM EST Communicating Environmental Health Issues

When:  January 16th | 11:00AM EST
Webinar Access: https://epa.connectsolutions.com/csswebinar/
Teleconference Dial-In: (866) 299-3188, Conference Code (2025643269)

This presentation will discuss EPA research to enhance community-based cumulative risk assessments and developing tools to communicate that research to the public. One of these tools is C-FERST, the Community-Focused Exposure and Risk Screening Tool. C-FERST is a web-based decision support tool designed to help identify and prioritize local environmental health issues. EPA/ORD scientists have been partnering with Agency community programs and external stakeholders to design and pilot C-FERST. This research and development effort responds to requests from EPA regional offices and communities, as well as recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Public Administration, and National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. C-FERST is being developed under EPA’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities research program, and is a Featured Product under EPA's Science-Based Decision Tools activities for the White House OpenGov initiative. The National Prevention Council Action Plan highlighted C-FERST as an EPA Exemplar Story under the Empowered People Strategic Direction. The beta version is scheduled for external peer review in FY13 and full public release in FY14.

This presentation will be followed up by a discussion session led by Stiven Foster of the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) who has had an early role in development efforts of the C-FERST tool. The discussion session will engage the program office, regions and other participants on the webinar to discuss program office regulatory needs, scientific interest and how CSS development of the C-FERST can help meet those needs.