What’s a brownfield property? There are at least 18 in Macon, here’s how they’re redeveloped
There are at least 18 properties in Bibb County considered “brownfield” locations, found under the Brownfield Public Listing, and 15 of them have yet to complete cleanup, according to the Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division’s website.
A brownfield is a property where the expansion, redevelopment or reuse of the land may be complicated by the presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant, as defined by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
“A brownfield property maybe an underground storage tank, an abandoned landfill, a site on the Hazardous Sites Inventory ... , hazardous waste treatment storage and disposal facility, or any property where there may have been or have been a release (of a contaminant),” said Shannon Ridley, Georgia EPD’s brownfield coordinator.
Potential soil contaminants vary based on the former use of the property, according to Ganga Hettiarachchi, soil chemist, professor and researcher at Kansas State University. Lead, arsenic, benzene and mercury are examples of contaminants.
How GA encourages people to buy, redevelop land
These types of properties can be difficult to take on for prospective buyers who want to make use of the land. But potential buyers can apply to have the property placed on the Brownfield Public Listing, which gives them limited liability under the Georgia Brownfield Act. That keeps innocent purchasers from potential third-party lawsuits, Ridley said.
Through the program, the properties create a corrective action plan, or a cleanup plan. All 18 properties in Bibb County have done so, but 15 of them don’t have an approved compliance status report, which means the investigation or cleanup of the property is still incomplete.
Six of the Bibb County properties found on the list have corrective action plans that date back to 2020 or earlier, but their cleanup completion dates are still blank.
“The properties are probably in varying stages of investigations and or cleanup,” Ridley said. “It may be maybe that there is a lot of contamination out there. It may be that they’re trying to marry their cleanup with their development, or (there’s been) economic downturn ... there’s lots of reasons.”
However, not every property requires cleanup. There’s not a specific threshold of hazardous contamination that a property on the brownfield list has to meet. There just needs to be evidence that there was once a release of a hazardous substance on the property.
The applicants have to use their own resources to bring soil and other source material into compliance with EPD cleanup standards, which are the same as the risk reduction standards that are declared under Georgia’s Hazardous Sites Response Act, Ridley said.
Cleanup can involve excavation and off-site disposal, treating soils right on the site, or employing the use of engineered and institutional controls if soils cannot be actively restored, according to Ridley.
The EPD’s level of involvement in this process is determined by the applicant, according to Ridley.
Why brownfield redevelopment is beneficial
While developing these properties has economic benefits and relieves cities from less-attractive properties that sit idle, there are also environmental, health and safety incentives to develop these properties.
In the instance of a fire, flood or heavy rainfall, there is the possibility that the contaminants that sit in the soil of these properties could be released into the atmosphere or seep into groundwater, according to Hettiarachchi.
“With climate change, we have a lot of flooding and a lot of unplanned, unexpected events, like extreme events, so that’s where we could see problems,” Hettiarachchi said.
These abandoned, often overgrown properties also tend to attract crime and littering, according to Hettiarachchi.
The Brownfield Public Listing is not a comprehensive list of every underused, potentially contaminated property in every county, according to Ridley.
“This list constitutes the properties that have been enrolled in the Georgia Brownfield Program,” Ridley said. “However, there are properties that may have been assessed under a U.S. EPA Brownfield Assessment Grant that maybe classified as “brownfields” pursuant to the EPA definition.”
This story was originally published January 17, 2025 at 1:18 PM.
