Brownfields Update for the Pacific Northwest

Just a couple years ago, retiree Ken Corliss couldn’t tell you what a brownfield was. In fact, he didn’t even know there were any in his hometown of St. Helens, Ore.

Today, Corliss is somewhat of an expert on the subject. He’s part of a team of retirees from the St. Helens area who have been working with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to inventory and then prioritize brownfield sites on public lands in this rural community. Corliss talks with passion of the work he and this team from the Columbia County Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) have done in getting contaminated lands one step closer to being put back on the county tax rolls.

“We were just hoping to help our county,” he says of why he became involved in the project.

When the 2002 Brownfields Act provided money to states to build their response teams, the act stated that timely surveys and inventories of brownfields sites must be done by states and tribes. The act also calls for providing an opportunity for the public to participate in the brownfield program. This pilot project in St. Helens not only takes a unique approach to inventorying contaminated sites but it also is getting the community to take on a role in its own redevelopment.

The pilot project has exceeded her expectations, says Ann Levine, DEQ cleanup program coordinator. The volunteers completed the inventory, then went a step further by championing the redevelopment of two of the sites, Levine says. Without the program, DEQ doesn’t have the resources to do this kind of work, she says.

The pilot project has been so successful Levine hopes to emulate it in other counties around the state. She’s exploring using senior volunteers in at least three other counties next year. Idaho also is looking at modeling the Oregon pilot project, she says.

The unique project started when Levine was looking for a way to get volunteers involved in brownfield activities. In late 2003, she approached the RSVP in St. Helens, a small community about 30 miles north of Portland on the Columbia River. While senior volunteers have been used in other parts of the country to do some brownfields work, Levine knows of no other brownfield project that has enlisted the help of retired senior volunteers to inventory brownfield sites in their community.

RSVP director Nancy Harwood put together a team of four volunteers, all recently retired professionals in the community. Prior to working with the DEQ, no one in the small group had ever heard of a brownfield, not even herself, Harwood says.

“They called me and asked me and I said, ‘What is this?’” she recalls.

The Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement (EASI) hosted a one-day training session for the volunteers and Harwood to prepare them for the work. Also coming to the volunteers’ aid was the Technical Assistance to Brownfields Communities (TAB) program at Oregon State University. Jerry Orlando, a TAB technical assistance specialist, worked with the volunteers this past year, giving them technical advice and helping them make contact with local officials.

The volunteers put together the inventory and visited each site to determine the prospects for redevelopment. They then narrowed their focus to two properties and developed profiles of the properties. The group chose the two sites they thought had the best potential for redevelopment. They especially wanted properties that were identifiable to local people, Corliss says.

Both properties are owned by the Port of St. Helens. One is the former PSI Manufacturing facility on Milton Way, near the center of town. Originally built as a lumberyard, the property has a 24,000-square-foot building where circuit boards were once made. Certain hazardous materials were thought to contaminate the concrete floor and outside area; however, that property has since been cleared by DEQ. It now has a renter.

The second property is a former wood treatment plant, known as the old creosote plant, where wooden poles were treated. It’s an important piece of property because of its location on the Willamette River. An open house, put together by the volunteers and TAB, was held on the site in May to attract real estate professionals and developers. A large portion of the site has been cleared for redevelopment by DEQ. The well water there continues to be tested for any remaining contaminants at the site, while DEQ and the former property owner complete their assessment of the more contaminated portion of the site.

Through outreach efforts to many local organizations, the volunteers have educated their community about brownfields and garnered support for the redevelopment of those two properties. They have taken their story outside St. Helens, speaking at conferences in Eugene and Portland as well as New Orleans and San Diego. Their next step is to inventory privately owned brownfields in Columbia County. They expect to recruit two or three more volunteers to help with this project.

Levine believes using community volunteers is important because the redevelopment of these lands is a local issue. “What this (project) has done is engage people in that process,” she says.