The Environmental Protection Agency is ready to back legislation under which an estimated 450,000 contaminated, abandoned parcels of land could be restored to productive use.

The bill would clarify liability issues for property owners willing to cleaning up the sites, known as "brownfields." It also would broaden the types of pollutants and sites that could be addressed and provide critical federal cash infusions for local governments to conduct site assessments and clean-ups.

"EPA's brownfields program is not perfect," the agency's Kevin Matthews said during a program at the National Association of Home Builders' convention here earlier this month. "But it gets us 97 percent of the way there."

The NAHB has made brownfields one of its top legislative priorities this year because many are in key city or first-tier suburban locations which could support housing or other types of construction. In addition, said an association spokesman, their re-development is a way of promoting smart growth.

The National Association of Realtors also supports legislation that would relieve innocent property owners of liability. "Breathing life into brownfield sites presents excellent opportunities for economic, environmental and social revitalization," the NAR says.

Under the current law, which was passed in 1980, generators of hazardous substances, transporters who selected the site and current and previous property owners are liable for the site's condition. But because of the burdensome requirements they must meet, the parcels are rarely detoxified and redeveloped.

The EPA's bill, "The American Brownfields Revitalization Act," covers contaminants listed under the 1980 so-called "Superfund" law as well as other more common, less dangerous materials, including asbestos, lead-based paints, PCBs and petroleum.

The agency says that without some incentives, wastelands may never be put back into productive use.

Under the measure, said Ron Fox, an attorney who represents the NAHB on the issue, a property owner who cleans up his site under a state brownfields program that has been approved by the EPA, federal authorities "cannot come back and demand anything else except under limited, extreme circumstances."

Said Columbus, Ohio, builder Charlie Ruma, last year's NAHB president: "(EPA Administrator) Carol Browner, the EPA and NAHB are on the same side of this issue."

Published: January 26, 2000

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