The land that grime forgot

DNR Web site highlights brownfield success stories

By Janine Anderson

Phoenix Park and the administrative offices of the Royal Credit Union in Eau Claire represent a success story of brownfields redevelopment. Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

Decades ago, it was hard to see exactly what industrialization would do to the land.

Now, the evidence is hard to ignore.

People built coal plants, foundries and factories. When those businesses folded or moved, the land beneath stayed behind, often contaminated with the toxic leftovers of early industry.

Over the years, that land sat empty. Designated as brownfields, the vacant lots with chemicals and waste hidden in the soil often reverted to city ownership when no one came forward to redevelop them.

More recently, public and private sectors are teaming up to clean and bring new life to brownfields.

In Eau Claire, for example, 15 acres of riverfront property sat vacant in the city’s central business district. Since the 1800s, the North Barstow area was home to a salvage operation, a manufactured-gas plant and other businesses that burned coal.

“There were significant contamination issues that needed to be dealt with before redevelopment could take place,” said Loren Brumberg, a land recycling specialist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

He said the land had elevated lead and arsenic levels, coal tars and other waste products, all of which needed remediation before any new development could come in. Before that work could begin, the city needed to figure out a new use for the site.

It envisioned a park on part of the land, and Royal Credit Union, one of the state’s largest credit unions, agreed to build its new corporate administrative center on the site if it was cleaned up.

With a plan in place, work began.

Since 1994, more than 19,000 cubic yards of contaminated soils, 60 cubic yards of creosote timbers, 16 tons of steel debris, 34 tons of tires and 40 cubic yards of coal tar were removed from the site.

The DNR helped the city secure millions of dollars in grants to help pay for cleanup and redevelopment, ultimately allowing the $12 million RCU building to be built and Phoenix Park to be created.

That site is one of 33 featured on a new DNR Web site highlighting brownfield success stories.

Andrew Savagian, an outreach specialist with the DNR’s Brownfields Section, part of the agency’s Remediation and Redevelopment Program, said the Web site tries to get successful redevelopment stories out to the public.

“There are more and more of these old, dilapidated warehouses and corner gas stations turned around,” Savagian said. “We realized these were very good stories, and we wanted to tell these stories.

“These can be major obstacles, not just for cities like Milwaukee, but for the small town with an old factory, and they don’t know what to do.”

The Web site started with 25 success stories, and the department will try to double that number by June.

“We want to keep expanding and growing this,” Savagian said. “Communities want to talk about how they’re revitalizing their downtowns. They’re trying to get the downtown to be an economic engine for a community again.”

The Web site also lets other communities see the tools and help available for their own blighted brownfields.

“The main goal is to get these sites investigated, cleaned up and returned to the community for productive reuse,” Savagian said. “If it’s contaminated and needs some help, that’s the most important thing.”

The Eau Claire project definitely qualifies as a success story, Brumberg said.

In Eau Claire, the city repeatedly tried to redevelop the land but was never able to pull it off until the 1990s, when it had the “perfect storm of things coming together,” Brumberg said.

“There were the right people on the City Council,” he said, “a business willing to take a risk and come downtown and a community willing to support and spend money on a city park.”

Brumberg said the project qualified for and received many of the tools available for brownfields redevelopment, something not every project is able to do.

“Oftentimes, no one’s willing to deal with the contamination issues,” he said. “The community doesn’t want to spend the money, folks don’t want to do the planning. If those don’t happen, redevelopment often doesn’t take place.”