15 acres cleaned up, 66,985 contaminated

Despite a state program to clean up ''brownfields,'' a report says only 15 acres have been saved.

By CRAIG PITTMAN and JULIE HAUSERMAN
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 7, 2002

Florida's program for cleaning up and developing contaminated sites has been hailed nationally as a model for other states.

But state auditors released a report Wednesday that blasted Florida's "brownfields" program as ineffective, finding that there has been been "relatively little progress" in actually cleaning up any land.

Local governments have designated nearly 67,000 acres statewide as needing state help, but auditors found that only two sites totaling 15 acres have been cleaned up and redeveloped since the program started five years ago.

Brownfields are abandoned industrial and commercial areas with a history of real or perceived environmental contamination. Often found in minority communities that are in need of jobs, brownfield areas usually lie dormant because potential developers fear being stuck with the exorbitant cost of cleaning up pollution. Instead, developers usually find it easier to push urban sprawl into once-rural areas where there is little risk of existing contamination.

In the 1990s, government agencies across the country began offering grants and tax incentives to encourage developers to build in brownfield areas. Florida launched its program in 1997 and has since spent more than $4.5-million on grants and other incentives to push it.

"It's kind of sad," said state Sen. Jack Latvala, the Palm Harbor Republican who shepherded the brownfields program through the Legislature. "We've put a mechanism in place. You can't make people do the deals. It's still cheaper to do something in an orange grove than it is to redo something that someone else did badly in a downtown area."

The two successful projects named in the audit, which was conducted by the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, were a 14-acre site in Orange County and a one-acre parcel in Clearwater.

"The city of Clearwater has used this program very well," Latvala said.

Clearwater was handed $500,000 early on as a pilot for the state's brownfields program. Clearwater's brownfield area runs from Stevenson's Creek down to Belleair Road, and stretches from Alt. U.S. 19 to Betty Lane and Missouri Avenue. City officials found about 100 potentially contaminated sites there -- old gas stations or dry cleaners that have gone out of business, leaving behind a polluted property.

That area, a survey by the University of South Florida found, "is not just an eyesore but also a serious threat to the social and economic well-being of nearly 12,000 residents. . . . More than 20 percent of the people live below the poverty line and low-to-moderate income residents comprise more than 50 percent of the area's population."

Yet after five years, the only site that the auditors found had been completely cleaned up and redeveloped is not occupied by a new business with lots of job openings. Instead, the site, once occupied by a gas station, is the home of the North Greenwood Community Health Center, which opened at that location just a year ago. It has three paid employees.

Clinic founder Willa Carson said city officials have let the brownfields program slide in recent months, even though she said there are still plenty of areas in need of cleanup.

Assistant City Manager Ralph Stone disagreed both with Carson and with the auditors. The city has assessed potential pollution problems on 40 properties and cleaned up several, he said.

A police substation was built on one, a play lot on another one, Stone said. He said a new Publix is now under construction on an old car-repair site, thanks to the brownfields program.

"It's been a good tool for us," said Charles Ray, who oversees St. Petersburg's 122-acre brownfields area near Tropicana Field.

Ray said the city has used brownfields funding to assess how much actual contamination exists in the 224-parcel area, reassuring businesses that were interested in moving into the area that they would not face a big cleanup bill. More than 150 wound up with a clean bill of health, he said.

The audit recommended several steps to make the brownfields program more effective. One was to improve coordination among the state agencies that are supposed to be in charge, because officials from one agency were unaware of what was going on at another agency.

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