Assembly Approves Program to Clean Up Polluted Lands

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
June 27, 2001

The Assembly approved a program today to clean up polluted industrial lands known as brownfields, the first movement in months on a long-stalemated issue that the governor and lawmakers call one of the year's top priorities.

The Assembly bill represents a compromise that brought together several factions that had been at odds, including environmental and business groups. It met with criticism today from Gov. George E. Pataki's office and his fellow Republicans in the Senate majority, but environmental lobbyists and state officials in both parties said it could be a step toward an ultimate agreement.

Meanwhile, Speaker Sheldon Silver dashed Mr. Pataki's hopes for quick approval of the governor's proposed deal to allow the Seneca Indian tribe to develop three casinos in western New York. The bill, proposed by the governor and passed by the Senate, would give Mr. Pataki approval in advance to negotiate a gambling agreement, or compact, between the state and the tribe.

Mr. Silver said today that the Assembly would insist on the right to approve the compact itself, would demand that the projects comply with all state labor laws, and would seek assurances on how the state's share of the profits would be spent. "I'm not passing until I know what the deal is," he said. "I'm not giving the governor a blank check."

The brownfields issue has vexed state lawmakers for years. The most polluted properties go into the Superfund program - a parallel to the federal program of the same name - in which the state orders cleanups paid for by the polluters, the state or both.

But there are thousands of less severely contaminated sites, or brownfields, many in poor communities, that lie fallow. Developers are often unwilling to buy and build on those properties because they would then become liable for cleanup costs. The state encourages cleanups, but has no set standards for those projects, instead striking deals one at a time with property owners.

The Assembly bill, by Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, provides more than $200 million to help pay for brownfield cleanups in mostly low-income regions, and provides property owners a guarantee that if they comply with the state's cleanup orders, the state will not return years later and tell them to do more.

Those steps won support for the bill from the New York City Partnership and Chamber of Commerce, which has also endorsed the governor's competing bill on the Superfund program.

The Assembly bill adopts the same cleanup standard now used in the Superfund law, that a site should be returned to its precontamination state "where feasible," though in many cases state monitors find that it is not. At the same time, it provides some templates for various kinds of cleanup orders, to ensure some consistency and streamline the process.

"We adopt the highest cleanup standard, while providing the reliability and liability protection the developers need," said Mr. Brodsky, chairman of the Assembly's Environmental Conservation Committee.

Environmental groups that have been at odds with one another over the issue have offered support for the bill, ranging from tepid to enthusiastic. "It's got some terrific thinking in it," said Val Washington, executive director of Environmental Advocates. "It isn't everything we wanted and it isn't everything the governor and the Senate wanted, but it takes us in the right direction."

Mr. Pataki has linked a brownfields program to refinancing the Superfund program, which has run out of money, while the Democrats insist on treating them separately. John P. Cahill, senior adviser to the governor, said of the Assembly bill: "It is a step, but it is dithering around the edges. It doesn't deal with the bigger issue of Superfund."

The governor introduced a bill earlier this year - the last concrete step taken on the issue until today - that would soften the Superfund cleanup rules so that, for instance, land to be used for a factory would not have to be as clean as land used for a school. His aides call that a realistic approach that would encourage the cleanup of more sites, while Mr. Brodsky calls it an unacceptable weakening of standards. Environmental groups have taken wildly divergent positions on the issue.

Senator Carl L. Marcellino, the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee chairman, said he did not think the Assembly bill went far enough in establishing detailed cleanup guidelines. Mr. Marcellino has introduced his own brownfields bill, but it has not passed in the Senate.

Mr. Marcellino also complained that the Assembly bill, by concentrating on low-income areas, would exclude two-thirds of the state. Mr. Brodsky countered that Mr. Marcellino had misread the bill, and that it would cover 90 percent of the state's brownfields, which are concentrated in urban areas.

"I would have preferred that the bill be more comprehensive than it is," Mr. Marcellino said. "It's a step forward in some areas, and a step backwards in others. But it's a positive thing that the Assembly is addressing it."