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......ated with the authors of this page or responsible for its content. Improving Public Health in Brownfields Communities Improving Public
Health in Brownfields
Communities Public Health B rownfields and public health are linked in many respects. Communities may be concerned about public health including threats
from potential environmental contamination, crime in or near abandoned
or vacant property, and safety hazards on dilapidated propertiesall
issues that relate to brownfield sites. But in some cases, public health can
be improved not only through assessment and cleanup of a brownfield,
but through its redevelopment. Redevelopment including recreational or
green space creation to encourage physical activity; community gardens
and public spaces that encourage interaction, reduce the effects of heat
islands, and improve storm water management; and accessible and
affordable pharmacies and grocery storesall ways to improve public
health. Public health also can be enhanced when brownfields are reused
by the health care sector. In communities where this type of brownfields
redevelopment has occurred, the benefits are obvious: in addition to the
restoration of blighted, idle land and the removal of contamination,
residents now have improved access to health care, new jobs, and local
economic engines that leverage additional improvements and enhance
quality of life. The Brownfields Law also provides local government brownfield
communities with an opportunity to link brownfields and public health
through the provision that allows a local government to spend up to 10%
of their grant to conduct monitoring the health of populations near
brownfields sites that may be exposed to hazardous substances. This
provision provides new opportunities for partnerships with local, state,
tribal and federal health agencies and community and private sector
efforts to assess, clean and revitalize brownfields, while also advancing
efforts to improve public health at the community level. Health Monitoring In their application for an EPA Brownfields Assessment grant, the City
of Portland, Maine proposed using 10 percent of the grant for health
monitoring activities. After the grant was awarded in 2005, the citys continued  The completed Portland-Providence Health Services Facility in Portland, Oregon. JUST THE FACTS: In their application, the City of Portland, Maine proposed using 10
percent of their EPA Brownfields
Assessment grant for health
monitoring activities. The grant
was awarded in 2005. The designated portion of Portlands EPA grant funded lead screenings for
180 children (with the results easing
community concerns about lead paint
exposure), as well as an asthma
surveillance study to identify areas of
the city with higher incidence rates. The cities of St. Petersburg, Florida; Clearwater, Florida; Portland, Oregon;
and Long Beach, California have all
seen once-idle brownfields reused as
health care centers that serve critical
community needs. In communities where brownfields are reused for public health facilities, the benefits are obvious: in addition to the restoration of blighted, idle land and the removal of contamination, residents enjoy improved access to health care, new jobs, and local economic engines that leverage additional improvements and enhance the local quality of life. A map of the Portland, Maine Brownfields Asthma Surveillance Study. planning office worked with city health officials to see how this funding could enhance their collaboration
and examined the extent of community health issues in brownfield site areas. The city already had
programs in place to study the impact of lead paint in older construction, as well as community asthma
levels, and decided to extend both of these projects in the brownfields areas using funds from the
designated portion of the Brownfields grant. The citys Brownfields grant-funded health monitoring activities included lead screenings for children at
more than 30 local childcare facilities. This project was initiated by mailing informational packets to area
daycare providers and inviting them to participate. Over the course of the study, 180 children were
screened, revealing only a small percentage of elevated samplesnone at levels that warranted further
investigation. The project provided peace of mind to Portlands residents by offering a more accurate
picture of the risks of lead poisoning within the community. The grant was also used to fund a detailed asthma surveillance study, in
which six school-based health centers tracked students with asthma and
mapped their residences to determine if any geographic areas contributed to
elevated asthma reports. The study identified more than 170 children with
asthma, and plotted logistical information on a GIS map to provide the most
accurate results. In addition to designated Brownfields grant funds, support for Portlands
health monitoring initiative came in the form of donated time from city
employees including administrative, health, and cartographic professionals.
Lisa Belanger, Program Manager for the citys Health & Human Services
Department, indicated that the health-related portion of EPA Brownfields
grant furthered our knowledge of the health of the community. For
communities considering similar uses of EPA Brownfields Assessment grants, Lisa recommends sharing
their Request for Proposals with public health officials to make them aware of the grant and potential
partnership opportunities. The experience of Portland, Maine serves as a useful example for other communities seeking a new vision
as part of their brownfield redevelopment. One such community is the City of Guin. Guin is a community
of approximately 2,400 residents located in Marion County in Northwest Alabama. In 1974, a level 5
tornado destroyed a significant portion of the city and some businesses did not reopen, leaving close to
75% of the population unemployed. While 3M remains a major employer in town, the redevelopment of an
old garment manufacturing plant sitethe focus of a current brownfield assessment grantwill help
create a new downtown for Guin. Revitalizing this site is part of Mayor Seagraves vision to create a downtown magnet for residents and
visitors alike, connecting destination sites such as an existing water park, schools and neighborhoods,
through a series of walking trails along a stream named Purgatory Creek and its tributaries. This vision
resulted from Mayor Segraves and City Engineer Burt Hankins, asking a question that has guided the continued  Brownfields Success Story Solid Waste EPA-560-F-07-253 Improving Public Health and Emergency January 2008 In Brownfields Communities Response (5105 T ) www.epa.gov/brownfields/ health assessment planning: Of various mixed-use alternatives, what is the optimal use of the
brownfields site to maximize the health of the community? To help make this vision a reality, the
city has enlisted the help of Dr. Patrick McNees, faculty with the University of Alabama Birmingham, to define the connection between community health and redevelopment. This connection suggests that public health can be improved even as economic development takes place, all through the cleanup and reuse of brownfields. Brownfields Reused as Public Health Facilities In 2000, the City of Portland, Oregon entered into an agreement with the Tri-County Metropolitan
Transportation District (TriMet) to use EPA Brownfields Assessment grant funds to conduct assessments
and develop a brownfields inventory in preparation for a new light rail route along North Interstate
Avenue. Through this agreement, the city managed the work under TriMets EPA grant to provide
assessments and technical assistance on properties within a quarter-mile radius of the proposed light rail
stations. The survey identified a vacant, former service station along the new alignment route, a site that
had been idle for years due to contamination concerns. The sites owner, who had received the property through inheritance, expressed willingness to work with
the city in assessing and marketing the property for reuse. TriMets EPA Brownfields grant was used to
conduct Phase I and II assessments of the site, which were completed in 2002 and surprisingly, indicated
that no cleanup was necessaryallowing the owner to put the property up for sale. The neighborhood surrounding the property had long been recognized by Providence Health & Services (a multi-state network of hospitals and health-care facilities) as underserved for health care, and the sites location along the proposed light rail route made it especially attractive for the location of a new health care facility. The company purchased the property in January 2006 and finished development of their new, 19,000- square-foot health facility in March 2007. The community has expressed
gratitude and appreciation to staff of the new facility, which provides general health care to a steady stream of patients. Construction of the relocated Johnnie Ruth Clarke Health Center facility began in 2003, funded with a $3.75 million U.S. Department of Health and Human Services grant and $463,000 in U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds. Development included preservation of the original 1923 historic building, and a new museum of the history of African-American medicine in Pinellas County. Opening its doors in 2004, the facility is a state-of-the art, federally-qualified health care center that created more than 100 jobs and
serves up to 300 patients a day. Florida A&M University offers a pharmacy program and training center
at the facility, and the University of Florida offers a Dentistry program onsite. In addition to providing
affordable and accessible health care and health-related education, the facility has catalyzed additional The completed Johnnie Ruth Clarke Health Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. continued  Brownfields Success Story Solid Waste EPA-560-F-07-253 Improving Public Health and Emergency January 2008 In Brownfields Communities Response (5105 T ) www.epa.gov/brownfields/ The Willa Carson Health Resource Center in Clearwater, Florida. economic development in the areaincluding a Boys & Girls Club Performing Art Center at the historic
Royal Theatre; restoration of the historic Manhattan Casino; and the new Tangerine Plaza, which offers
retail and grocery shopping. In addition, the city is working with a developer on an affordable housing project
that will likely be located on a vacant property in the vicinity of the Community Health
Center. Less than 20 miles northwest, in the City of Clearwater, the site of an abandoned
gas station became a free health clinic for residents of the citys North CONTACTS: Greenwood community. The property was deemed as the perfect place to
relocate the Greenwood Community Health Resource Center due to its For more information contact U.S. EPA REGION 1: (617) 918-1221 central community location. The city purchased and had earlier performed U.S. EPA REGION 4: (800) 241-1754 environmental assessments and cleanup on the site, which was located U.S. EPA REGION 9: (866) 372-9378 within the City of Clearwaters EPA Brownfields Pilot target area, using U.S. EPA REGION 10: (800) 424-4372 EPA and state Brownfields Program funds. As part of cleanup, four Visit the EPA Brownfields Web site at: underground storage tanks and 450 tons of contaminated soil were removed http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/ from the property. Representatives of North EPA Key Partner: Agency for Toxic Substances Greenwood voted unanimously for the city to and Disease Registry (ATSDR) lease the property to the nonprofit clinic http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ which founder Willa Carson had been
operating out of two refurbished apartmentsfor 30
years at $1 a year. Opened in January 2001, the 3,200-square-foot Willa Carson Health Resource Center provides free health care, mostly to
residents of surrounding communities, and is operated solely on donations and grant funding with the help of a volunteer workforce. The clinic has four examination rooms, a reception area, and a community room for educational sessions about lead screening, breast cancer detection, nutrition and managing diabetes, and other health-related topics. Given the nature of brownfields, and the economic status of the communities that typically surround them,
reuse of these sites for health care facilities often fulfills critical needs and offers greatly improved medical
access for local residents. The examples described above suggest an emerging trend in brownfields
redevelopment, one being applied in other cities nationwide. In Long Beach, California, the Miller Childrens
Hospital received $600,000 in EPA Brownfields Cleanup grants to remove petroleum and other
contaminants from adjacent property formerly used as a dumping ground. This cleanup is allowing the
hospital to create a new, four-story wing on the former brownfield that will include a pediatric imaging
center, a neonatal intensive care unit, pediatric beds, and operating roomsserving a predominantly
Hispanic/African-American community in which roughly a third of the children live in poverty. Cleanup and
health-industry reuse of brownfields in communities such as these protects residents from the blighted sites
themselves, and provides new health-care options for those who might previously have had few available. Brownfields Success Story Solid Waste EPA-560-F-07-253 Improving Public Health and Emergency January 2008 In Brownfields Communities Response (5105 T ) www.epa.gov/brownfields/