OER created to overhaul NYS' Brownfield Cleanup Program

According to mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Office of Environmental Remediation (OER) to expedite the cleanup of contaminated brownfield sites throughout New York City as outlined in PlaNYC has been created. The new office will create a new local brownfield program and work with communities and developers to help them navigate remediation processes. Bloomberg also outlined a series of reform measures for NYS's Brownfield Cleanup Program, including state authorization of the city to offer liability protection for Brownfield cleanups performed under city oversight. The mayor was joined at the ceremony, which took place at Edgewater Concrete Plant, by newly appointed OER director Daniel Walsh, director of the mayor's office of operations Jeffrey Kay and parks commissioner Adrian Benepe. "Over the past six years, we have undertaken a comprehensive review and transformation of land-use in N.Y.C., unlocking transit-accessible areas for new residential and commercial development, creating and enhancing parks and playgrounds and revitalizing more than 60 miles of waterfront," said Bloomberg. "Cleaning our more than 7,600 acres of contaminated sites and putting them to productive use is the critical next step in that effort. Our new Office of Environmental Remediation, led by Dan Walsh, will spearhead our plan to make that happen, but we can't do it alone. We need Albany to introduce a series of critical reforms to make brownfield remediation easier and more economical, and to ensure it is done with greater input from local communities." Walsh is the former director of the city office of the Superfund and Brownfield Cleanup Program for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. The new office will be housed within the mayor's office of operations. "Mayor Bloomberg's proposed reforms to the State Brownfield Law, including the request for authorization of state liability protection for city-managed brownfields, are essential to making brownfield cleanup programs work in N.Y.C.," said Walsh. "In N.Y.C., land is scarce. We need to be creative to ensure maximum enrollment of our brownfield properties in cleanup programs to prepare the way for new parks, housing and commercial enterprise. Our new city program will deliver high quality cleanups based on state standards, provide city assistance to deliver cleanups more promptly, engage and support our communities in innovative ways, and introduce a variety of new programs that incorporate sustainability principals into the cleanup process." Cleaning up all contaminated land in the city is one of the 10 major goals of PlaNYC, the city's long-term sustainability plan. The city has invested $18 million over the next five years to fund local brownfield cleanup efforts and significantly expand the city's role to encourage testing and cleanup of the sites. The NYS Brownfield Cleanup Program, created by law in 2003, has been effectively shut down for the last year due to state concerns over the high cost of state tax credits issued to relatively few completed sites. The program is currently closed with a 90-day moratorium to allow legislators time to consider reform.