Long Beach was cited as one Long Island community that could receive federal grants when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced Monday new proposed legislation, Waterfront Brownfields Revitalization Act, to help revitalize former shoreline industrial sites.
The legislation, which needs the approval of Congress and the president’s signature, would designated $220 million of federal brownfields funds each fiscal year from 2013 to 2017 to provide grants — some for as much as a $500,000 — to local government and nonprofits to redevelop vacant or underused industrial properties along the shoreline, according to Newsday.
Gillibrand, a Democrat whose is seeking re-election in November, said while at a former industrial property in Glen Cove on Monday:
"There's an enormous return on your investment when it's on a waterfront because people are drawn to the water. We can attract new businesses and attract new jobs."
A brownfield site is the expansion, redevelopment or reuse of property that has been contaminated by a hazardous material. Under the Brownfield Opportunity Areas Program, municipalities are eligible for funding of up to 90 percent of the project’s costs to complete revitalization plans and implement strategies for communities affected by contamination.
At a City Council meeting in March 2011, North Park resident Crystal Lake raised the issue of brownfields, questioning why the city never pursued government funding to clean up the North Park area as a result of pollutants left behind by the former Long Beach incinerator.
"Why is the North Park residential area included in the brownfield opportunity areas?” Lake asked the City Council. “The vast majority of North Park residents are not aware that their homes are included in, or part of, the brownfield opportunity area.”
She then asked the City Council if there are any plans or funding opportunities that the city applied for in the North Park area.
Charles Theofan, the city manager at the time, said the city has had environmental studies done in that area and none suggested that North Park should be designated a brownfield site. He said some remediation has been completed, but the studies have found no danger from contaminants except where dry cleaners or gas stations were located.
“There’s nothing along the bay front and certainly not in the residential area of North Park,” Theofan said about environmental dangers. “There are no plumes or any dangers whatsoever that I am aware of.”
In February 2009, the DEC released a study of Long Beach as a potential brownfield opportunity area, but it never moved forward, said Councilman Len Torres.
Torres said he learned that the contamination from the former incinerator has spread as far east as Monroe Boulevard and as far west as Laurelton Boulevard.
“It’s a pretty serious situation,” he said.
Theofan said he failed to see any benefit in the city’s continued participation in the brownfield program.
When Torres was reelected in November 2011, he said at his inauguration two months later that he would like the new Democratic administration to put vacant brownfields on its agenda of issues to address. “And we need to be able to work together to clean these places up,” he said.
When Ray Ellmer was reappointed to the Long Beach Zoning Board of Appeal in August 2010, he told Patch that the clean-up of brownfields in the North Park of neighborhood was among the major issues that the city faces, along with implementing new FEMA regulations on the height of new construction and boardwalk reconstruction.
“These are zoning issues that apply to the city, so I would be taking an active role [in addressing them] as a commissioner of the zoning board and as a private citizen,” said Ellmer, who is a real estate attorney.
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