Project

Sustainable Long Island recognizes that brownfields redevelopment is the future of growth on Long Island.

We map brownfields where they occur in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, advocate for redevelopment legislation, promote redevelopment in communities where they facilitate downtown revitalization, and always strive to move redevelopment forward.

Living on Long Island, abandoned and blighted properties along our major commercial corridors are an almost daily sight. What we can’t see is the ground contamination that has made many of these properties unusable and poses a potential threat to human health. These brownfields are often former dry cleaners, warehouses, gas stations, and other industrial or commercial parcels and while the businesses have long since departed, the contamination may still remain in the ground.

Imagine this scenario: Long Island cleans up and redevelops its 6,800 brownfields. For every acre of brownfield that is redeveloped, three acres of open space are preserved. The resulting development of Long Island’s brownfields creates 60,000 full-time jobs, $6.8 billion in business revenue, and $340 million in tax revenue – all without infringing on a single acre of Long Island’s dwindling open spaces. The contaminants that led these brownfields to be abandoned are removed from the ground and no longer threaten our drinking water – Long Island is one step closer to being environmentally sustainable.

Since its launch in 1998, Sustainable Long Island's Brownfields Redevelopment Projects have produced the following concrete results for communities across Long Island:

• Launched the first public database of Long Island's 6,800 brownfields as identified by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and the US Environmental Protection Agency
• Hosted three regional brownfields conferences and conducted over 100 presentations to introduce the concept to people across Long Island
• Helped craft the language and supported the passage of statewide brownfields cleanup legislation, adopted by Albany in 2003.
• Created Brownfields-to-Greenfields, a how-to redevelopment manual distributed regionally, with a second edition released in 2011:
  • The purpose of this “roadmap” is to provide an understanding of the brownfield redevelopment process and the opportunities available in New York.  It is designed to provide information for local government officials seeking to facilitate brownfield redevelopment in their communities, citizens hoping to understand how the process affects them, developers and investors seeking to participate in this growing marketplace, groups that wish to facilitate the redevelopment process, and end-users of redeveloped property.  The ultimate goal is to facilitate full stakeholder participation in the brownfield process. This manual provides information on: New York State, federal and private funding and financial incentives; technical assistance and liability protection available for the cleanup and redevelopment of brownfield sites in New York State; and an overview of the various brownfield programs offered by New York State.
• Developed and launched the Brownfield Busters Patch Program in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, an educational program developed to teach Long Island Girl Scouts about brownfields and environmental leadership; and presented the program at the EPA National Brownfield Conference receiving a regional EPA award for the program.
• Consistently organizes individual meetings with municipalities and the Department of State to explore utilizing Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) planning grants to further revitalization goals within their specific localities. We've worked on BOA programs for the Town of Babylon, Village of Freeport, and Huntington Station:
  • The Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) Program provides municipalities and community organizations with expertise and financial assistance of up to 90% of the total eligible project costs to complete redevelopment and implementation strategies and plans for brownfields in an area wide rather than a traditional site by site approach. The Department of State administers the BOA program and NYSDEC provides relevant technical assistance and advice to the Department of State and BOA grantees. The area-wide approach enables communities to comprehensively assess existing economic and environmental conditions associated with brownfield impacted areas. The BOA planning framework is flexible and can be adjusted and tailored to meet specific community needs. These planning and implementation strategies can include community visioning, public participation processes, existing conditions analysis, economic and market studies to assist in determining the best use of brownfields and vacant sites; environmental investigation; site-specific redevelopment plans; environmental impact assessments; marketing material, local law changes, architectural and streetscape design and other actions to spur investment and redevelopment of brownfields.
    • The BOA program has been grossly under-utilized in Long Island, and Sustainable Long Island attempts to further the community development efforts of Long Island municipalities by assisting them with the application process.
• Participated in a number of regional and national conferences and committees including EPA’s National Brownfield Conference, co-chair of NYS chapter of National Brownfield Association, invited by The Ferguson Group to be members of a national committee of organizations committed to advancing brownfield redevelopment initiatives.
• Has organized brownfield breakfast series which include meetings with Long Island municipalities to promote BOA applications as well as offer technical assistance
• Advocated for expedited redevelopment of contaminated properties by proposing various policies such as the inclusion of Class 2 inactive hazardous waste Superfund sites in the definition of a brownfield, so that they would qualify for the Brownfield Cleanup Program (BCP). This was based on Sustainable Long Island’s research indicating that Nassau and Suffolk have the greatest concentration of Class 2 State Superfund sites in the state, which have been difficult to cleanup. The difficulty is due to the reluctance of companies to accept responsibility for the site and the underfunded Superfund program.
• Created a Long Island-wide Brownfield Advisory Committee, or task force, to bring urgent brownfield matters to the forefront and look for opportunities to redevelop brownfields including widely distributing the newly revised Brownfields to Greenfields manual as well as a brownfields survey to scope the current understanding of brownfields.

Brownfields Survey

Brownfields to Greenfields 2011