This commercial, and many others stuck with me as a child. However until now I had never attached a name to the sites of environmental contamination. It still shocks me today that not that long ago people everywhere had a sense that throwing something away, regardless of where you threw it (or buried it) made it vanish. out of site out of mind.
I was inspired by our guest speaker Chelsea Corson. Chelsea is a technical and project manager for Drake consulting group out of Mequon, WI. Drake consulting group is a small private firm of four employees, two of which, Chelsea and one other, are both Alverno Alumnae. Her knowledge and ability to visually process possible past contamination, and then use tools and connections to investigate, and asses the extent of the damage to begin the remediation and redevelopment process got me very excited. I had truly felt for the first time since beginning my course work in environmental science, that I had found my dream job. The idea of cleaning up the mess we have made and making things right, in my opinion, is our obligation as humans. To apply the knowledge and experience we now have of the long term effects of dumping hazardous chemicals and contaminates into the ground and beginning to clean them up. The remediation and redevelopment of old abandoned properties, instead of walking away and damaging what little natural spaces we have left with some other temporary structure is exciting to me.
Since Chelsea's visit I have spent alot of time online and in the library doing my own investigating of brownfield sites in our own back yard. I found out that many of the neighborhoods I have lived in and visited all my life have had some pretty nasty things hidden in and around them, but also the many projects that have already been completed that have made a significant impact on our city.
Chelsea's firm mainly is hired by individuals or corporations looking to assess the amount of cleanup involved in a possible future building site. However, on the other end of the spectrum, I have also found that there is a significant effort by the EPA to seek out these areas of potential past contamination's, and assist in the clean up in what is known as a Superfund for sites of potential public danger. These sites are listed on a national priorities list or NPL. I have attached the link to the EPA's website that has a large amount of information on brownfields past and present all over the United States. I also want to clarify also that this clean up isn't all government funding going to the clean up of these Superfund sites. These sites are generally sites of extreme negligence by the property owners and the contamination is punishable by law and the responsible party or parties are responsible for the clean up if they are still available for prosecution.
http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/
Growing up in Milwaukee I have also always had a soft spot in my heart for the preservation of the architecture of this great city. One of my favorite redevelopment sites is the AF Gallun tannery buildings that once sat along the milwaukee river just north of water street. Tannery row, as it was known, was home to many historically significant businesses in milwaukee, among those are Trostel, Pfister and Vogel, along with AF Gallun and sons. Tanneries of the past used very harsh chemicals and contaminates to process animal hides and are therefore sites of former point source water contamination along with soil contamination. Brownfield remediation and redevelopment processes have allowed us to right the wrong we have done in our past to the environment while still preserving our historical buildings. I have included several photos of the AF Gallun and sons tannery from the mid 1900's when it was a functioning tannery to present. The site has been completely cleaned up, several buildings did need to be demolished, but a significant portion of the main building and its amazing brick work have been preserved and turned into luxury loft apartments.
While doing further research of my own I signed up for several publications and notifications of events going on all over our state. Surprisingly, I received the following notification for a webinar on hazardous waste remediation. I will be attending (watching) this webinar, hopefully as my professional conference, and blogging about it afterward. I posted the info here for anyone else who may be interested and available to also attend.
Reminder: Webinar for Hazardous Waste Remediation
Wisconsin DNR’s Remediation & Redevelopment Program kicks off its “Issues and Trends” Webinar Series this week. Former Policy and Technical Resources Section Chief Mark Gordon will discuss “Guidance for Hazardous Waste Remediation.”
- March 6, 2014
- 1:00 - 2:30 p.m.
- Click to Join the Live Meeting
- Audio will be provided via WisLine. Call 1-888-291-0312, enter passcode 5155 216#
- Pre-registration not required
The PowerPoint presentation and an audio recording of the webinar will be made available on DNR’s Brownfields Training webpage: (http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Brownfields/Training.html).
And mark your calendars for April 16, 2014, when Paul Zovic of Endpoint Solutions leads a discussion on the new ASTM Phase-I ESA standard. More details about this and other webinars will be included in future editions of the RR Report.
