December 25, 2002—Concerns about urban sprawl, job creation, and cleaning up polluted properties—aided by national legislation, new financial incentives and more government and public support—continue to push land recycling activities to new levels, according to the 2002 XL Environmental Land Reuse Report recently released.
The Land Reuse Report provides a snapshot of national and regional trends in the reuse of contaminated land through a media coverage review about these activities. The annual report, which has also been issued in 2000 and 2001, is available online.
Exton, PA-based environmental insurance provider XL Environmental partnered with the International Economic Development Council (IEDC), based in Washington, D.C., to perform the media analysis for the third consecutive year. The IEDC analyzed 331 newspaper and business journal articles published from July 2001 to June 2002 and collected from online sources.
The number of redevelopment projects that are cleaning up and returning formerly used property to good use continues to grow, according to this year’s report. The report examined news coverage of 428 specific land reuse activities involving at least 160,000 acres, or 224 square miles of property in 43 states, plus Washington, DC, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
This represents a 43% increase in land area than was represented in the 2001 Land Reuse Report, which reported on 112,000 acres discussing 346 specific brownfields sites.
XL Environmental Senior Vice President of Risk Management Bob Hallenbeck said: “Growing problems with suburban sprawl—combined with advances in remediation technology and environmental insurance—make brownfields redevelopment an increasingly attractive solution to an array of land use and economic problems. Year after year, this analysis shows that people are growing more comfortable with brownfields redevelopment and are taking advantage of the risk management tools and financial incentives available to them. ”
The number of states represented in this report is also greater than those discussed in the two previous reports, showing more widespread interest and activity in brownfields redevelopment. California showed the most dramatic increase in land reuse activity and ranked number one in this year’s analysis.
In the 2002 report, 41 sites discussed in the media were in California as opposed to only 20 sites in last year’s report.
Additional information and land use trends are available on the XL Web site.
