EPA administrator highlights OKC's success with Brownfields Program

What to Know about the EPA's Brownfields Program

Background: On Thursday, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin visited Oklahoma City to highlight some of the success the city has had in using the EPA's Brownfields Program to facilitate the remediation and redevelopment of properties throughout the downtown core. Here are the basics:

What is a 'Brownfield'?

According to the EPA, a brownfield is "a property where expansion, redevelopment or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant."

The City of Oklahoma City's website goes into more detail: "Brownfields are underused or abandoned properties with confirmed or possible environmental contaminants that complicate development opportunities. (They) can include land or buildings containing asbestos, mold or other pollutants. This often includes former industrial and commercial operations like gas stations, dry cleaning facilities, grain elevators, landfills and oilfields."

EPA Brownfields History

According to the EPA website, in the mid-1990's, the agency "began providing seed money to local governments to launch hundreds of two-year pilot projects and developed guidance and tools for cleanup and redevelopment of brownfield sites. The 2002 Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act codified many of EPA's practices, policies and guidance. The 2018 Brownfields Utilization, Investment and Local Development (BUILD) Act reauthorized EPA’s Brownfields Program and approved changes that affect grants, ownership and liability provisions, and State and Tribal Response Programs. Under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, Congress provided major funding to support planning, construction and operation of various public infrastructure improvements.

Brownfields Impact

The EPA says there are more than 450,000 brownfields in the Unites States. Cleaning them up and reinvesting in these properties, the agency says, has numerous potential benefits:

1. Improves and protects the environment.
2. Increases local tax bases.
3. Facilitates job growth.
4. Makes use of existing infrastructure.
5. Takes development pressures off green spaces and working lands.

OKC Brownfields Successes

Oklahoma City has created its own Brownfields program which leverages EPA dollars to provide financial resources for environmental site assessments, loans to developers for environmental clean-up, and discounted loans to nonprofit organizations for environmental clean-up to aid redevelopment; and provides technical guidance in identifying brownfields, assisting with state or federal regulatory agency programs, and completing phase I/II site assessments. Among OKC's completed projects:

1. OCCC Capitol Hill Center
2. Embassy Suites
3. Steelyard Apartments
4. First National Center
5. Sunshine Cleaners
6. NE 23rd Street Clinic and Retail
7. Townhomes on NE 6th Street
8. The Collective
9. The Dwellings @ SOSA
10. Bricktown Fire Station