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The EPA defines brownfields as idled, or underused industrial and commercial facilities or sites that have real or perceived environmental contamination and an active potential for redevelopment or reuse. Brownfields are often found in economically distressed areas and are usually considered lightly contaminated from previous use.
Brownfields can have all kinds of dangers—debris, dilapidated buildings and even dangerous, toxic chemicals. Some dangers are easy to see—broken windows and glass, rotted wood floors, rusty nails and pipes, and old barrels. Other dangers are not visible and harder to detect—toxic chemicals that can be harmful to people if they eat them, breathe them or get them on their skin.
When brownfields are cleaned up, neighborhoods are better in many ways. All around the country brownfields are being cleaned up and redeveloped into new businesses, parks, and other uses.
Why does Hartford have brownfields?
The rise of brownfields in Hartford can be traced to an industrial abandonment that occurred in the city, and elsewhere in Connecticut, in the 1980s and 1990s. As a result of this industrial migration, many buildings and sites, including many with potential environmental hazards, were abandoned. Hazards included ash used as fill and toxic substances from old manufacturing processes.
By 1997, more than 750 buildings were vacant. Since then, many blighted buildings have been demolished, but some 480 vacant buildings remain; of that number, 330 will be mothballed for future use. According the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one-third of all land zoned for commercial or industrial uses in Hartford can be classified as brownfields.