EPA’s Brownfields Program empowers states, communities, and
other stakeholders to work together to prevent, assess, safely cleanup, and
sustainably reuse brownfields. Revitalizing brownfield sites creates benefits
at the site and throughout the community.
For example, through fiscal year 2012, on average, $17.79
are leveraged for each EPA Brownfields dollar expended; on average, 7.30 jobs
are leveraged per $100,000 of EPA
Brownfields funding expended on Assessment, Cleanup and Revolving Loan Fund cooperative agreements.
Brownfields Program Accomplishments as of June 2013
Including State and Tribal Program:
• Properties
Assessed: 20,449
• Cleanups
Completed: 872
• Acres
Made Ready for Reuse: 39,906
• Dollars
leveraged: $20.1B
• Jobs
Leveraged: 90,017
Since FY 2006, Accomplishment Report by State and Tribal
Response Program Using CERCLA Section 128(a) Funding:
• Enrolled
over 42,000 properties
• Completed
more than 68,800 cleanups
• Made over
644,000 acres ready for reuse
Flat Branch Park, Columbia, Missouri
Five pilot studies conducted by the Brownfield Program on
Environmental (Air and Water) Benefits from Brownfield Redevelopments, indicate
brownfield sites tend to have greater location efficiency than alternative
development scenarios resulting in a 32 to 57 percent reduction in vehicle
miles traveled, thus reducing pollution
emissions including greenhouse gases. These same site comparisons show an
estimated 47 to 62 percent reduction of stormwater runoff.
Additional study funded by the Brownfield program to assess
the impact of Brownfield grants on residential property values, concluded
residential property values increased between 2 and 3 percent once a nearby
brownfield was assessed or cleaned up. The study further concluded that
cleaning up a brownfield can increase over‐ all property values within a one
mile radius by $0.5 to $1.5 million.
Also, Initial anecdotal surveys indicate a reduction in crime in
recently revitalized brownfield areas.
Opportunity to expand assessment program and achieve
leverage funds and jobs has increased. Policy clarification provides the use of
site assessments dollars for environmental site assessments in conjunction with
efforts to promote area‐wide planning among areas and corridors of brownfield
sites. The use of funds for these purposes is particularly important to help
those economically distress areas. Moreover, in certain instances when
environmental site assessments reveal immediate threats to the environment or
human health, a more programmatic use of EPA Removal funds to address these
threats could be implemented.