What to do about brownfield sites?

They were the industrial powerhouses that drove the world’s economy for the best part of two centuries. Now, they have become one of the world’s biggest environmental challenges.
From the early 1800s to the latter stages of the 20th century, landscapes across the western world were criss-crossed with signs of industry - towering pit wheels, belching cokework chimneys and grimy factory stacks.
However, in many areas those industries have vanished, driven out of business by cheap foreign competition and recession, leaving behind a terrible legacy.
Acre upon acre of unused land is contaminated with chemicals, dust and spoil heaps and toxic substances leach into the ground, poisoning soils and groundwater.
 
BREATHING NEW LIFE INTO SITES
The big challenge has been breathing new life into the sites and one of solutions has been to use them for the generation of renewable energy.
One of the initiatives attracting interest is a research project that has come up with a way of generating green energy from an everyday grass.
Researchers at Teesside University’s Contaminated Land and Water Centre, in the North East of England, started the project in 2004 to see which plants could best cleanup sites by absorbing the likes of zinc, copper, cadmium and heavy metals.
The BioReGen (Biomass, Remediation, Re-Generation) team experimented with willow trees and miscanthus, reed canary and switch grasses on sites around the North East in work supported by a e1.2m grant from the European Union’s LIFE-Environment research programme.
Now, they have confirmed that reed canary grass not only cleans up the soil but can be used as fuel for biomass power stations and, on a smaller scale, boilers in buildings like schools.
Dr Richard Lord, Reader in Environmental Geochemistry and Sustainability at the Centre, said: “We narrowed the plants down to reed canary grass because it grows well on poor soils and contaminated industrial sites. That is significant because in areas like Teesside, and many similar ones elsewhere, there are a lot of marginal or brownfield sites on which reed canary grass can be grown.
“Selecting such sites means that the grass can be grown without taking away land which would otherwise be used in food production, a key concern for those involved in the biomass and biofuel sectors.”
Having reached maturity, which takes two years, the reed canary grass is harvested and baled then turned into bricks and pellets.
Dr Lord said: “The test burnings have shown that reed canary grass produces a good, clean fuel without picking-up contamination from the soil.
“Reed canary grass has great potential because it offers a suitable use for unsightly brownfield sites while producing an excellent fuel at a time when the world is crying out for new ways of producing green energy.
“Our research also suggests that the end product is improved soil quality and biodiversity at the greened-up sites. We are now examining ways in which we can commercialise this idea and are already talking to a number of major biomass power station operators.
“Contamination of soils, groundwater, sediments, surface water and air with hazardous and toxic chemicals is one of the major problems facing industrial societies today. We hope that through our work, we can help restore these old industrial sites and so aid economic growth."
Similar arguments hold sway in many other countries, including Continental Europe and North America.
 
PRESIDENTIAL INPUT
US President Barack Obama is among those supporting work to restore brownfield sites, an initiative overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has identified a number of sites for renewable energy projects.
A good example is the 30-acre former Bethlehem Steel Mill in Lackawanna, New York, which sat idle for three decades. Stretched along 2.2 miles of Lake Erie’s banks, six miles south of Buffalo, the former steel mill had been seen as a symbol of the area’s economic downturn.
It had not always been like that. Owned by Bethlehem Steel, the mill operated for almost eighty years and at the height of production, employed more than 20,000 people. After it closed in 1970s, the City of Lackawanna saw a ripple effect through its economy and its population declined by 30 per cent.
As with many brownfield sites, the site was contaminated, this time with steel slag and industrial waste, but in May 2002, the EPA awarded the City of Lackawanna a $200,000 Brownfield Assessment grant to investigate options for development.
The result was the Steel Winds project which has seen the steel mill site chosen for wind energy redevelopment because much of the construction could occur without excavating the contaminated soil.
City officials teamed up with BQ Energy and UPC Wind to develop a project to power 9,000 homes a year with plans to expand even further by installing new turbines.
It’s typical of the kind of projects reviving brownfields in the US and President Obama played his part by signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which provides funding for similar projects.
One of the places to benefit has been Newark, New York, which received $600,000 to clean up a former gas station on Bergen Street, the NSC Plating and Polishing Company on South 12th Street, and the International Metallurgical Services site on Blanchard Street.
EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck believes the work has an economic benefit, saying: “Contaminated and abandoned lots are being cleaned up in a manner that protects public health and the environment. These properties can then be redeveloped and will generate more tax revenue, thereby providing both environmental and economic benefits to the residents of Newark.”
And Newark Mayor Cory Booker said: “As we continue our transformation of Newark, we are making sustainability and ‘green’ policies a central part of our efforts. We are able to remediate once-blighted brownfields in our City, and restore them to productive use, which will improve the environment and health for all of our residents.”
The once-great industrial sites are, it would seem, regaining their place in the landscape.