EPA’s primary responsibility at Superfund sites is to ensure the protection of human health and the environment. As part of this responsibility, EPA recognizes that identifying and understanding reasonably anticipated future land use at a site is an important consideration that affects the entire site cleanup process. When EPA cooperates and collaborates with local communities, formerly contaminated properties can be returned to productive uses that also help ensure the protectiveness of the remedies put into place to protect human health and the environment.
EPA Region 5 offers a range of tools and services for communities that are exploring future use opportunities at Superfund sites. These tools and services include:
- Community Involvement Support
- Research and Analysis Services
- Site Reuse Plans
- Partnership Opportunities
Community Involvement Support
Community involvement support activities can range from the coordination of small stakeholder groups to the formation of larger land use committees. Facilitators work with participants to identify reuse opportunities and constraints at Superfund sites; they also support participants in identifying potential future use opportunities that will best meet the needs of the larger community.
Research and Analysis
Understanding a site’s existing conditions and history as well as key community characteristics are important pieces of information that can impact the reuse possibilities at a site. Developing a comprehensive understanding of a Superfund site, as well as local history and environmental and economic conditions, can help further characterize a site and ensure that reuse planning activities generate practical stakeholder and community opportunities for future uses at a site.
Site Reuse Plans
Building on community involvement activities and site and community research and analysis, site reuse plans synthesize research findings and stakeholder feedback into a written document and visual framework called a site reuse plan. A site reuse plan provides a general strategy for a site’s reuse, identifying site areas that may be particularly well-suited to particular land uses, the potential roles and responsibilities of site stakeholders, and key considerations and next steps that will need to be taken to address site reuse constraints and support site reuse opportunities.
Each reuse plan provides information about a site and its surroundings, local interests and priorities, and area land use trends, which in turn inform a site reuse strategy and key considerations and next steps that are the core of the reuse plan. Each reuse plan is designed to reflect community input and be consistent with a site’s remedy.
The development of effective reuse plans relies on people and partnerships as well as information and analysis. In developing reuse plans, project stakeholders such as local government representatives, potentially responsible parties, community stakeholders, and other interested parties work together to identify shared interests and build consensus regarding a site’s potential future land use.
EPA is also committed to identifying local, regional, and national partnership opportunities to assist in the Superfund redevelopment process.