Voluntary action to redevelop potentially contaminated property operates under vastly different market constraints than mandated corrective action programs. Pressures exist that impact the time scale, cost/benefit ratio, priorities, and resources that allow the action to transpire. Non-market pressures, usually in the form of regulation, also affect decisions over the course of redevelopment. Together, these forces also determine the technologies and methods used to characterize the property, as well as the media sampled.

The waterfront voluntary setting provides added value to property owners, potentially providing a greater incentive to sink costs and invest in field portable technologies to characterize contaminated sites. Previous case studies¹ have shown that such tools are not only faster, but more cost effective in the long run, despite a high initial sticker price. However, while the information barrier concerning field-based soil assessment technologies continues to decline, and their application increases, assessment of common property resources, particularly aquatic sediment, remains infrequent without a clear cost recovery mechanism. This report will investigate the reasons behind that and detail the current level of field-based characterization tool application at 115 waterfront brownfield and Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP) sites.

This paper began as an investigation into innovative remediation technology application in the federal Brownfields program. The rationale involved attempting to collect data for waterfront Brownfields similar to that contained in the Annual Status Report for Superfund and other documented sites.

It was known at the start of the research period that consistent documentation did not exist for Brownfields. However, after about two weeks of investigation, it became clear that few waterfront Brownfields sites had reached the remediation phase. Properties targeted under federal pilots comprised only 7 of the 25 completed remediations noted here; nearly all of the other properties remained in various phases of characterization, and the attention of the project shifted to application of field portable assessment tools. Additionally, the data pool expanded to include the wider waterfront characterization market in both federal and state brownfield sites, as well as state VCP properties. Very little separates these categories in terms of characterization needs, as long as the setting remains constant for research control purposes. Then, as now, evidence of aqueous sediment work was highly desired to test if, when, and how area-wide assessment issues were handled around waterfront property. Such evidence could suggest a market for field-based sediment characterization tools, if and when they become available. Due to cost recovery concerns, most of the voluntary work done on these completed sites involved only landward soil removal within a property boundary. This paper presents several lines of evidence to explain why that has been the case, and also explores mechanisms that allowed stakeholders to overcome such concerns and characterize area-wide problems like contaminated sediment (CS).

Lastly, the data set for this paper does not encompass all waterfront brownfield and voluntary cleanup sites nationwide, though with the advent of online databases, that goal appears at least possible for some states. Due to the brief 12-week supported research period, the goal was to gather as many sites as possible, regardless of geographic location. Therefore, the dataset is not recommended for making comparisons between varying state regulatory environments—however, it does adequately capture nearly all known activity on waterfront properties targeted through the federal Brownfields Initiative. Discussion of further research needs follows at the end of this report.

[ Back to Table of Contents | Forward to Chapter 1 ]

¹Internal Document: "Expediting the Site Characterization Process at Three Brownfields Sites in New Orleans, Louisiana: Case Study". Prepared for U.S. EPA by Tetra Tech EM, Inc, Sherry Gernhofer, Work Assignment Manager, December 12, 1997, Table 6-4.
See also Cost Estimating Tools and Resources for Addressing Sites Under the Brownfields Initiative (EPA/625/R-99/001). Office of Research and Development, EPA, Washington, DC, April 1999.

Page last modified: