Speaker 1: Money is good, you like it, I like it. More
Speaker 1: is usually better, right, Well, on this episode of Parts
Speaker 1: per Billion, we present you with a scenario where more
Speaker 1: money isn't necessarily better, at least not for rural communities
Speaker 1: that want to redevelop polluted real estate. Hello and welcome
Speaker 1: to another episode of Parts per Billion, the policy podcast
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Environment. As always, I'm your host, David Schultz.
Speaker 1: So we've talked on the podcast before about some of
Speaker 1: the challenges of redeveloping contaminated real estate, and not every
Speaker 1: developer is willing to step in and purchase a property
Speaker 1: that might have previously been the dumping ground for lord
Speaker 1: only knows what kind of toxic chemicals. The EPA gives
Speaker 1: out grants that act as a sort of carrot to
Speaker 1: help developers get over their fears, and recently it announced
Speaker 1: it would be increasing the size of these grants, which
Speaker 1: is great news, right. Well, Sylvia Carridan says, no, not really,
Speaker 1: and she joins us in the studio now to explain why.
Speaker 1: Hello Sylvia, Hi David, thanks for having me, Thank you
Speaker 1: for coming. So first off, these grants are for what
Speaker 1: are known as brown fields, and we should sort of
Speaker 1: define what that is. I'm guessing it's not just a
Speaker 1: field of dying grass that's turned brown. It could be well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on why the grass is dying.
Speaker 1: That's right. So brown fields are sort of an interesting
Speaker 1: creature because you can say that something is a brown
Speaker 1: feel just based on the perception of contamination there. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's not even contaminated, but people think it is. It
Speaker 1: can also be a property that was abandoned. It can
Speaker 1: be just something that's been vacant for a long time.
Speaker 1: But in general it is underutilized real estate, so it
Speaker 1: has the potential for redevelopment. So it's just land that
Speaker 1: is for maybe an environmental reason or maybe a reason
Speaker 1: that's tangential to the environment, just not being used for
Speaker 1: what it could be, right, I see, And give me
Speaker 1: an example of the kinds of pollution that can be
Speaker 1: found on these sites, you know, are we talking like?
Speaker 1: You know? I think one of the things we talked
Speaker 1: about before was like a dry cleaner that existed for
Speaker 1: a while and closed down, you know, leaves all kinds
Speaker 1: of weird dry cleaning chemicals on a site. Is that
Speaker 1: so that's a brown field, that's right? That could be
Speaker 1: a brown field that it could also be a gas
Speaker 1: station that had closed down, and maybe there are some
Speaker 1: underground tanks that are leaking whatever kinds of things, maybe
Speaker 1: petroleum products, maybe something else. It could be a factory
Speaker 1: that closed down after you know, all the workers got
Speaker 1: outsourced to foreign countries, and who knows what is left behind,
Speaker 1: Maybe just the building, maybe there's something else. Are we
Speaker 1: talking like radioactive chemicals? Are we talking chemicals where like
Speaker 1: if you come into contact with like one molecule, you'll
Speaker 1: drop dead, Like what kind of you know? Give me example.
Speaker 1: So brown fields are not usually as contamina as superfund sites,
Speaker 1: which the EPA says is the most contamining sites in
Speaker 1: the country. Those are things like the Goanis Canal with
Speaker 1: its layer of black manis at the bottom. Can we
Speaker 1: have one podcast with you on where you don't talk
Speaker 1: about black mannaise? Every time you come on, you bring
Speaker 1: up it's a great black mannaise in the it's a
Speaker 1: great mental picture. It is a mental picture. I don't
Speaker 1: know if i'd say it's great, but so okay. So
Speaker 1: I think I'm getting the idea that these these are
Speaker 1: not insanely polluted, but they're too polluted to do something
Speaker 1: with and the EPA wants to give out these grants
Speaker 1: to you know, make sure that that they can be
Speaker 1: restored and economically useful. Yeah, So developers would generally redevelop
Speaker 1: that land if they wanted to, but for some reason,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's the potential for contamination or something
Speaker 1: else that makes them hesitate, and that's why the federal
Speaker 1: government steps in to try to close that gap between
Speaker 1: what would be a reasonable investment and sort of what
Speaker 1: might be happening at that site. So the grants that
Speaker 1: the giving out are getting larger. They're saying, you know, where,
Speaker 1: you want to help redevelop larger sites. And that's a
Speaker 1: good thing, right you would think it is. So the
Speaker 1: upper limit for clean up grants EPA can award to
Speaker 1: individual brown field sites went up from two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to five hundred thousand dollars as a result of
Speaker 1: some brownfield provisions included in the Omnibous Spending Bill from
Speaker 1: this past spring. So you can now get up to
Speaker 1: half a million dollars to redevelop one of these sites.
Speaker 1: That's right. And there's now a new category of multipurpose
Speaker 1: brown fields grants that are up to one million dollars each.
Speaker 1: But yeah, why why is this bad? Why why are
Speaker 1: you know people saying this is going to hurt you know,
Speaker 1: small rural communities. So EPA is using the same amount
Speaker 1: of money that it usually has for brownfields grants, which
Speaker 1: means that if they are giving out larger grants, there's
Speaker 1: going to be fewer of them. If you are a
Speaker 1: community that's been applying for these grants every single year,
Speaker 1: like Milwaukee, and you're used to the pros, you know
Speaker 1: what the EPA is looking for, you're more likely to
Speaker 1: be one of the forerunners to get that grant, as
Speaker 1: opposed to a community that hasn't really been in the
Speaker 1: grant writing process before. They're not really familiar with applications
Speaker 1: and maybe they just have, you know, a gas station
Speaker 1: to clean up. They're less likely to get one of
Speaker 1: those grants because there's so much competition for the bigger ones.
Speaker 1: I see. So it's essentially the slices of the pie
Speaker 1: are getting larger, but the actual size of the pot,
Speaker 1: the whole pie, is staying the same, right right, So
Speaker 1: it sounds like this is a situation where they're rich
Speaker 1: are getting richer and the poor essentially are staying just
Speaker 1: as poor as they were. I mean, it's that the
Speaker 1: ultimate effect that you have these big cities with that
Speaker 1: have more resources and you know, maybe attorneys on staff
Speaker 1: who can help them write these grants and help them
Speaker 1: maybe also lobby the EPA to get these grants. Are
Speaker 1: you know, getting are more eligible for these larger grants,
Speaker 1: whereas you know, a smaller community just doesn't have a chance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the rural communities out there that have fewer resources,
Speaker 1: maybe less experienced with these grants, are less likely to
Speaker 1: get them. But the EPA also funds these organizations that
Speaker 1: assist communities like those for free, so they do have
Speaker 1: the option to reach out and ask for help. So
Speaker 1: there is some hope for them, right, There is some hope,
Speaker 1: but it's not a guarantee that they're going to get
Speaker 1: those big grants as opposed to a city that maybe
Speaker 1: has an entire industrial district that's been abandoned and needs
Speaker 1: to be redeveloped. Let's take a step back and think
Speaker 1: about the optics of this. I hate that term optics,
Speaker 1: but let's just sort of throw it out there. This
Speaker 1: would seem like this is this new policy is something
Speaker 1: that helps urban areas and hurts rural areas. That's not
Speaker 1: something that I'm used to hearing about from this EPA,
Speaker 1: from the Trump administration's EPA. What's going on here? Why
Speaker 1: did they take this move that would seem to fall
Speaker 1: out of line with their sort of political mo So
Speaker 1: I think these changes in the omnimus build to how
Speaker 1: big the grants can be came from lobbyists who are
Speaker 1: familiar with this issue and are representing these communities who
Speaker 1: have paid for that help. Sure, that's how things work here, right,
Speaker 1: and also groups like the National League of Cities who
Speaker 1: are sort of wider reaching. And if you're not communicating
Speaker 1: with those groups, or you don't have a lobbyist to
Speaker 1: represent you, you're less likely to get your interests hurt
Speaker 1: in Congress. So that's why those changes are making their
Speaker 1: way into not only these bills, but also the EPA's programs.
Speaker 1: I see. So it's sort of this was slipped under
Speaker 1: the radar, and maybe you know, it's not a political thing.
Speaker 1: It's just some very successful lobbyists for big cities were
Speaker 1: able to, you know, get something into the appropriations bill
Speaker 1: without people noticing. I think it was public the whole time,
Speaker 1: but I think they're very happy about what they were
Speaker 1: able to get into into the bill. All right, well,
Speaker 1: thank you Sylvia for educating us about Brownfield's redevelopment. That
Speaker 1: was Sylvia Kerrignan. For more of her reporting on solid
Speaker 1: waste and other top like this, visit our website at
Speaker 1: News dot Bloomberg, Environment dot com. That's news dot Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: Environment dot com. Today's episode of Press Pavillion was produced
Speaker 1: by myself as well as Jessica Coombs and Rachel Dagel.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Marissa Horn, and our audio engineer is
Speaker 1: Nicholas and Zelado. The music for this episode is a
Speaker 1: message by Jizarre, who was used under a Creative Commons license.
Speaker 1: More information can be found at Better with Music dot
Speaker 1: com