![[.jpg image, 10kb]](0913ciminellibw.jpg)
DEREK GEE/Buffalo News
Developer Paul Ciminelli, one of the region's
largest builders of suburban office parks,
wants to develop some of Buffalo's brownfields,
including this site on the Union Ship Canal.
Superfund-Brownfields Bill passes the NYS Senate
Opposed by virtually all WNY Incumbents
From Mike Schade, Citizens' Environmental Coalition (CEC):
"The Senate passed [on 9/16] the Superfund-Brownfields bill, S.5702/A.9120. The bill refinances New York's bankrupt State Superfund - to the tune of $120 million a year - and expands the program to include additional sites like dry-cleaning facilities. It also creates a new "brownfields" clean-up program, with economic and other incentives for redeveloping abandoned sites that may have lesser amounts of contamination.
The vote was not unanimous as we had hoped. Virtually the entire western New York delegation voted against the bill: Senators Volker, Rath, Maziarz, Stachowski, Brown, Kuhl, McGee, Robach and Alesi. This was due to aggressive opposition to the bill from western New York businesses, as well as Erie County and Buffalo officials, who oppose the industry fee increases and want weaker environmental standards.
The bill contains almost everything NYPIRG, Citizens' Environmental Coalition (CEC), and others were seeking with regard to refinancing Superfund, expanding it, and maintaining its stringent cleanup program. Although NYPIRG and CEC are thrilled with the Superfund part of the deal, we have concerns that the brownfields program will allow less-than-complete clean-ups of these sites. Nevertheless, the new brownfields program contains some of the most environmentally protective clean-up criteria in the country. We will be watching closely to see how this program is implemented.
This brings to a close nearly a decade of activism on the Superfund issue - almost. The bill now goes to Governor Pataki to sign. We will be sending out an action alert shortly asking you to call Governor Pataki's office urging him to sign the Superfund-Brownfields bill into law as soon as possible."
BACKGROUND: Article from The Buffalo News City/Region, Emphasis added
REDEVELOPMENT
Upstate vs. downstate over brownfields
Bill may make or break cleanup efforts, leaving Buffalo in the
hot seat
By TOM PRECIOUS
News Albany Bureau
9/13/2003
ALBANY - After more than a decade of fruitless talks, state lawmakers are set to give final passage next week to a historic bill that promises to jump-start efforts to clean and develop thousands of abandoned and polluted industrial sites across the state.
Or they will pass a bill that drives developers into the suburbs and away from the brownfields. Those are the two arguments running through Albany, where one group's reform is another group's setback.
But this latest fight has big implications for Western New York, the state's poster child for brownfields. Some state officials believe that 40 percent of Buffalo could qualify as brownfields, which are typically unused sites that are either contaminated or believed to be.
The bill's promoters predict Buffalo will benefit more than any other city, with developers rushing to clean and reuse the brownfields. But the very developers they are relying on to lead this renaissance say the bill will not only keep them from coming into the city, but will encourage their march to build on open space - greenfields - in rural and suburban areas. "They have just made brownfields more costly and more onerous than it was before. Ironically, environmentalists are making greenfields more attractive to develop upstate," said Paul Ciminelli, one of the region's largest builders of suburban office parks who has been trying to develop some of Buffalo's brownfields.
Like so many disputes in Albany, this has devolved into a downstate/upstate tussle, with all the ensuing political and economic ramifications. Ciminelli and others said the bill will work fine for developers downstate - where land is in greater demand and far more valuable than upstate.
For example, Ciminelli said, it could cost $50,000 an acre to clean up and develop a brownfield site on Long Island, which in turn could be sold for $300,000. In Buffalo, the same cleanup costs would be required for a parcel in a prime spot that at most could fetch $35,000 - making it a money-loser. "We're dealing with too many unknowns," he said.
On one side are the state's Republican and Democratic political leaders, including Gov. George E. Pataki, all the major environmental groups and an assortment of mostly downstate business organizations and real estate entities.
Indeed, every Republican and Democratic lawmaker from the region in the state Assembly voted for the measure when it passed there in June. The generous financial perks the bill offers to participating developers will be just the incentives needed to transform the blighted land into new uses, whether for housing or new commercial sites, supporters say.
But in the past few weeks, an assortment of upstate business groups, led by Buffalo-area corporate executives, have jumped into the battle, warning that the law is vague, too expensive and hastily cobbled together. Joining their cause are Mayor Anthony M. Masiello and County Executive Joel A. Giambra - two politicians who rarely agree on anything these days - and the Buffalo Common Council.
The critics have engaged the help of at least three State Senate Republicans from Western New York - Dale M. Volker, Mary Lou Rath and George D. Maziarz - who are trying to persuade Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno to postpone the brownfields vote when the Senate returns Tuesday to Albany. They say their opposition is growing, and they believe Bruno will side with them.
That scenario does not appear likely, as Bruno has insisted his house will pass the bill he agreed to in June with Pataki and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
If the bill passes, Masiello contends, then "they're passing legislation that isn't going to help. That would be very unfortunate," he said. Passing the bill soon in hopes that it can be corrected later does not sit well with some business leaders.
"It stinks," Daniel B. Walsh, president of the Business Council of New York State, an influential corporate lobbying group, said of the bill. Walsh said Pataki, Bruno and Silver appear to want the brownfields bill so much because they need something to show for the dismal and combative legislation session that ended in June. "That's the only thing they're worrying about - to show they can do something together - (rather) than do something right," Walsh said.
"This would be worse than the status quo," said Andrew J. Rudnick, president of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership.
But State Sen. Carl Marcellino, a Long Island Republican and sponsor of the bill, called the sudden opposition "disingenuous" by critics who never sought to become part of the negotiation process over the past decade. Marcellino said the amount of unusable, vacant land "is like a cancer growing in our cities," preventing places like Buffalo from rebounding. "The removal of these sites from the tax rolls is killing the cities. We can put them back to productive use - I see this as a win-win for all regions of the state," he said.
The legislation
The bill does several things. Notably, it replenishes the state's Superfund program, created in response to the 1978 contamination by toxic waste of Niagara Falls' Love Canal neighborhood - now called Black Creek Village. The bill aims to clean up the 800 most contaminated properties statewide that often pose an immediate danger. The funds for that program had run out. The new funds will come mostly from new fees on businesses, which the Business Council says is unfair.
"The only business really with concerns are those that would be the biggest polluters," said Marcellino. "The average business person is not paying anything." While Superfund sites are on a special cleanup list, the approach to restoring brownfield properties is often muddled. A city that has inherited a brownfield site from a landowner who disappeared - Buffalo owns hundreds of such properties - can get funds to clean up a site for redevelopment.
Making easier rules
Developers who now want to build on a brownfield site, meanwhile, must go through a lengthy process with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The result is a hodgepodge system that has led to different rules for different properties.
The new legislation, backers say, changes all that. In return for strong cleanup standards, landowners are given protection from lawsuits once the land retuns to use. Moreover, there are sizable financial incentives. Municipalities get back from Albany a larger share of costs - from a new, $15 million state fund - associated with investigating and cleaning a brownfield site. For developers, the bill sets aside $135 million a year to fund reuse work they do on brownfield sites.
"In exchange for some seriously tough standards that protects the public's health, the state is going to put money on the table to incentivize cleanup," said Jeff Jones, a lobbyist with Environmental Advocates, an Albany advocacy group. "The status quo is what's leading to gobbling up of greenfields and abandonment of inner cities. This bill is specifically designed to do something about that," Jones said.
Finger pointing
Conspiracy theories abound over the brownfields dispute. Some say the Buffalo Niagara Partnership is spearheading the drive at the behest of nervous bankers who fear liability exposure. Upstate business leaders say the measure is being pushed by developers on Long Island and in New York City, where soaring property values make developing brownfield sites increasingly attractive.
The Buffalo Niagara Partnership has complained of the bill's "excessive public notice" requirements, big new state fees and claims that landowners could still be exposed to lawsuits even after properties are cleaned. And they insist it requires developers to clean urban brownfields to rural property standards.
Ciminelli, whose company is developing the 70-acre Union Ship Canal in Buffalo, one of upstate's largest brownfield projects, says the bill will make that ambitious development more difficult to complete. The bill leaves several questions unanswered about cleanup standards, said Ciminelli, president of Ciminelli Development. Its costs are too high, and there is no certainty how long the regulatory process will take for each project - a key concern for any developer trying to figure out bottom-line costs. Supporters say critics are glossing over the millions of dollars in funding destined for participating developers - money that stretches much farther upstate - while they seek to protect companies that should be paying for pollution on dirty land. Moreover, they say, any vagueness in the bill will be answered over the next year or so as the state environmental agency, as with any such legislation, takes the bill and writes specific regulations to implement it.
Environmentalists say they can't figure out some of the opposition. When the rulemaking process for the bill is complete, they say, developers will finally have one set of standards by which to live by for brownfields instead of the case-by-case system now in place. "The level may be tough, but the goalpost won't move on them," said Jones of Environmental Advocates.
e-mail: tprecious@buffnews.com
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