Overtown's Town Park Gardens revitalization team (from
left to right): Frederic San-Millan, project manager, Miami-Dade Empowerment Trust;
Nicholas Lailas, senior environmental program manager, HCET; Rev. Dr. Richard
L. Marquess-Barry, spiritual leader, St. Agnes' Episcopal Church; James Gibson,
deputy director, St. Agnes CDC; Aundra Wallace, assistant director, Empowerment
Zone Trust Corporation; Charles T. Dabney, Jr., senior program officer, Local
Initiatives Support Corporation; Katrina W. Wright, deputy director, Fannie Mae
South Florida; and Ali Ebadian, director, HCET.
In
a development that places greater emphasis
on building local, community partnerships
to address a major environmental issue
with significant national dimensions,
the FIU Hemispheric Center for Environmental
Technology (HCET) is actively expanding
its role in the area of brownfields redevelopment.
Brownfields
are abandoned, idled or underused industrial and commercial facilities where real
or perceived environmental contamination complicates expansion or redevelopment.
And whether the contamination is real or perceived, the scope of the problem is
extraordinary. The federal government estimates that there may be as many as 450,000
brownfield properties in the country. According to the General Accounting Office,
it may cost as much as $650 billion to clean up all the brownfield properties
in the United States. In the corridor from Florida City north to Port St. Lucie
alone, there are an estimated 2,100 brownfield sites.
HCET's
plan for involvement in the brownfields area is comparable to its highly successful
work in the field of decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of nuclear
facilities. Its mission is to provide research, technical, administrative and
management expertise as a partner to government and private industry in support
of brownfields redevelopment. HCET will be engaged as a partner to mitigate environmental
hazards; promote environmental remediation technologies; and facilitate technology
transfer. Actual cleanup activities of contaminated sites would be handled by
other public or private organizations.
To
this end, HCET is seeking federal support to become a key coordinating agent for
brownfields, which would serve as a clearinghouse for technical information, knowledge
management and expertise on the subject. Currently, the only other university
in the nation actively conducting brownfields research is Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh.
While on last year's campaign trail, President George W. Bush cited brownfields
as a "great environmental challenge" and HCET's officials are hopeful that
federal funding will be forthcoming in support of this initiative.
"FOUR YEARS AGO, WE DECIDED TO DEVELOP
MORE OF OUR ACTIVITIES IN THE LOCAL MARKET,"
SAID ALI EBADIAN, DIRECTOR OF HCET. "WE
WANTED TO BE A UNIVERSITY THAT COULD SOLVE
THE REAL PROBLEMS OF THE COMMUNITY. WE
OWE A LOT TO THIS COMMUNITY FOR ALL THE
SUPPORT THEY HAVE PROVIDED. IN FLORIDA,
WE CANNOT EXPAND DEVELOPMENT TO THE WEST
BECAUSE OF THE EVERGLADES, SO WE NEED
TO RECLAIM EXISTING AREAS IN THE EAST
THAT MAY NEED BROWNFIELDS REDEVELOPMENT.
...WE'RE INTERESTED IN DEVELOPING APPLIED
SOLUTIONS."
 |
|
Nick
Lailas
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Those
applied solutions include two ongoing
local projects. The first of these is
the Community Gymnasium Project, a partnership
between HCET and the city of Opa-Locka
to acquire vacant brownfields property
to build a community gymnasium for area
residents. HCET provided the technical
expertise to evaluate the status of
the site and received $400,000 in funding
from the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development for the assessment
and purchase of the land, which will
be given to Opa-Locka. The city is also
providing matching funds for the project.
The second
initiative is with the Miami-Dade Empowerment Zone Trust, the organization that
is spearheading projects within the county's Empowerment Zone, which includes
some of the most economically distressed areas in the county. HCET is conducting
an environmental assessment of the Town Park Gardens site in Overtown, a public
housing project that was built in the 1970s and closed in the early '90s.
The
plan calls for demolition of the old apartments (145 units) and the construction
of 85 new, resident-owned townhouses. The Saint Agnes Rainbow Village Community
Development Corporation (CDC) is the lead organization on the project; other partners
include the Miami-Dade Housing Authority and Bank of America.
"We are here to redevelop
this community, it's about providing a better quality of life for the people of
Overtown," said the Rev. Dr. Richard L. Marquess-Barry, spiritual leader of St.
Agnes' Episcopal Church.
Previous
projects mounted by the CDC organized by Rev. Marquess-Barry included the redevelopment
of the nearby Rainbow Village housing project and the establishment of day care
facilities.
The
environmental assessment of the Town Park Gardens site includes a records search
to determine all the previous uses of the property as well as analysis of soil
samples for eight toxic metals and asbestos. Plans call for completion and occupancy
of the townhouses in 2003.
HCET
is also working with Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management
to conduct an inventory of potential brownfield sites throughout the Empowerment
Zone.
"FIU's
involvement with the Trust provides me the opportunity to work with a first-rate
institution whose goals and objectives are consistent with the public development
orientation of the Miami-Dade Empowerment Trust," said Brian K. Finnie, president/CEO
of the Trust. "Specifically, partnering with FIU on our housing initiative in
Overtown is enabling us to develop quality housing in a safe and clean
environment and at affordable costs to first-time homebuyers."
All the brownfields initiatives
are being led by Nick Lailas, senior environmental program manager, a 30-year
veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. During
his tenure with the two federal agencies, he was involved in writing the 1974
Safe Drinking Water Act the first comprehensive national drinking water
legislation as well as a wide range of research and development, and technology
transfer activities. Lailas is putting his extensive environmental experience
to use on a variety of other activities that HCET is engaged in. These include:
* HCET
organized and participated in the Third Annual Florida Brownfields Conference
in August 2000 in Miami Beach, an event that brought together top experts from
across the country and other nations.
*
HCET is a signatory
partner in the Eastward Ho! Brownfields Partnership, an organization that is encouraging
reclamation and redevelopment of brownfield sites centered around I-95 and US
1.
*
HCET participates in
the Miami-Dade County Brownfields Oversight Committee.
* HCET
participates as a member of the Miami-Dade County Brownfields Training Partnership
Advisory Committee.
*
HCET is a member of
the advisory group for the Brownfields Minority Workers Job Training Program.
*
HCET participates in
the Southern Environmental Business Council, which has been active in formulating
and developing the Brownfields agenda for the State Legislature.
"We would like to become
a national technical clearinghouse, a central place for research, information
and expertise on brownfields," Lailas said.
