Monday 4/12/99 Brownfields Introductions

[Tony Chenhansa <tonyc@cpeo.org>]

Monday 4/12/99 Brownfields Introductions


16) Katherine Reilly     Beveridge & Diamond
17) Marjorie Lifsey     Lewis and Clark College
18) Michael Gerrard     Arnold & Porter
19) Keith Welks     Phoenix Land Recycling Company
20) Kris Sarri     Department of Housing and Urban Development
21) Ann Goode     Northeast Midwest Institute
22) Maxine Leichter     LA City Environmental Affairs Department
23) Gene Schmittgens     Ziercher & Hocker

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 From: "Katherine Reilly" <kreilly@bdlaw.com>
To: <cpeo-brownfields@igc.org>
Subject: Re: Romance & Brownfields Newsgroup Introductions

My name is Katherine Reilly.  I am an attorney in the San Francisco
office of Beveridge & Diamond, a national environmental law firm.  My
practice includes brownfields, redevelopment, land use, environmental,
and natural resources issues.  I represent a variety of municipal
agencies, property owners and developers, industries, and nonprofit
groups in connection with the remediation and redevelopment of
brownfields properties in California.


Katherine Reilly
Beveridge & Diamond LLP
One Sansome Street, Suite 3400
San Francisco, CA 94104
tel. 415/983-7712
fax 415/397-4238
e-mail kreilly@bdlaw.com

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Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 19:06:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Marjorie Lifsey <lifsey@lclark.edu>
To: cpeo-brownfields@igc.org
Subject: Re: Romance & Brownfields Newsgroup Introductions

Dear Tony,

I am a second year law student at Lewis & Clark College, Northwestern
School of Law.  Last summer I worked for EPA Region 10 in their Oregon
Operations Office on environmental justice, brownfields, air quality,
and
transportation issues.  As an EPA employee, I was involved with the
Portland Brownfields Initiative, and I continue to be involved as an
interested citizen.

I recently wrote a paper for Law Review on EPA's Prospective Purchaser
Agreements as a tool to redevelop brownfields.  Over the past year, I
have
researched 69 PPAs from every EPA region in the nation.  I examined the
covenants not to sue and the "benefits to the community" in each PPA,
and
I discussed the trends in each EPA Region.  I believe that PPAs can
provide benefits to purchasers and local communities, if certain
safeguards are included (i.e. RCRA protection, public participation).
If
anyone is interested in my paper, please feel free to contact me.

Currently, I work for a state circuit judge in Multnomah County on
complex
litigation cases, including hazardous waste cases.  I worked, and I am
still working on, several cases regarding environmental insurance and
multiple insurance allocation issues.  I've enjoyed list-serve
discussions
on environmental insurance.

This summer and next year I will be working for the Oregon Department of

Justice in their Natural Resources Division in the Portland office.

As a law student, most of my spare time is spent in the law library.
But
when I do get out, I like to run and bike.  I am running the Boston
Marathon in a week and a half, and I am pshyched.

Thanks for this informative list-serve-

Margi Lifsey

lifsey@lclark.edu
8114 SE 11th Ave.
Portland OR 97202

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From: Michael_Gerrard@aporter.com
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 08:13:53 -0400
Subject: Brownfields introductions


My name is Michael Gerrard.  I have practiced environmental law in New
York City since 1978, and I am now a partner in the New York office of
Arnold & Porter.  I frequently represent property owners and project
applicants in brownfields projects.  I also teach environmental law as
an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School and the Yale School of
Forestry and Environmental Studies.  My most recent book, BROWNFIELDS
LAW AND PRACTICE: THE CLEANUP AND REDEVELOPMENT OF CONTAMINATED LAND
(Matthew Bender, two volumes) was named Best Law Book of 1998 by the
Association of American Publishers.  My next book, entitled THE LAW OF
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, will be published this summer by the American Bar
Association,

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Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 17:22:17 -0400
From: Keith Welks <KWelks@compuserve.com>
Subject: Romance & Brownfields Newsgroup Introductions

My name is Keith Welks.  I am the President of the Phoenix Land
Recycling
Company, a 501(c)(3) organization which functions as a kind of nonprofit

"predeveloper" of brownfield sites.

Realizing that those few words are more mystifying than edifying, I
offer
the following (at the risk of causing hundreds of pairs of eyes to
rapidly
glaze over):  we negotiate purchase option or contingent sales
agreements
with owners of particularly distressed brownfields.  By particularly
distressed, we mean 1) sites that have been long passed over by the
private
sector and are not likely to be attract private
assessment/cleanup/redevelopment interest in their present condition and
2)
sites whose owners generally lack the interest, capacity or financing to

move their properties through the environmental and development process.

With option/contingent agreement in hand, we carry out a comprehensive
environmental assessment to determine current conditions and likely
remedial requirements.  This information is used to negotiate a cleanup
agreement with the appropriate regulatory agencies (so far, only in
Pennsylvania); the state agency has committed to sign these agreements
with
Phoenix serving as a kind of proxy for an end-user which may not yet be
identified.  The agreements will be both  contingent (the rights and
responsibilities triggering only when someone takes title; we do not
plan
to do that) and assignable (to someone who actually takes title).  We
then
work with local groups -- CDCs, local government, local economic
development agencies, etc. -- to find end-users who will bring
community-supportive uses to the site.  Depending on the prospective
purchaser and the use, we either convey our interest (and the regulatory

agreement) to the end user with the site in an "as -is " condition or
take
the next step and arrange for cleanup and then convey our interest in an

"improved" brownfield.  In a nutshell, we try to add value to the
original
brownfield by fronting the time and money needed to reduce many (or,
when
we also do the cleanup, virtually all) the uncertainties.

We are presently "engaged" at three properties.  Our farthest along
involves a former EPA emergency removal site which had been effectively
abandoned since EPA activities ended about a decade ago.  The emergency
removal did not entail a comprehensive cleanup, and serious PCB
contamination remained behind.  We have completed assessment, secured
approval of our cleanup plan, and persuaded the state to perform the
actual
remediation under a new program designed to aid brownfield projects like

this. The site will be transferred to a local transportation agency this

summer, where it will be used to construct a park and ride commuter bus
station which will help extend mass transit to the surrounding blue
collar
community.  A second site has a similar legacy, and we are about to
begin
the environmental assessment effort.  A third site involves a designated

historic brewery which has fallen on hard times (series of tenants who
thought it was Miller time all the time and eventually vacated the
premises
leaving behind many containers of unidentified materials which those
narrow-minded regulators insist on calling wastes) but which is on the
boundary of an major downtown renaissance effort.  We are in the early
stages of this project.   All three sites are less than 5 acres and all
are
in urban or core city locations.

We are also involved in several programmatic initiatives which we see as

closely related to our core mission of devising specific solutions to
specific brownfield problems.  In particular (and in brief(!!)), we are
1)
administering a regional EPA brownfields pilot grant project which will
provide educational outreach, one-stop brownfield information and
assessment assistance at selected sites and 2) leading an effort (with
The
Development Fund from California) to create a private financing
intermediary which will be a source of lending/financing for brownfield
projects unable to obtain such support in the traditional private
markets.

We are located in Harrisburg and Allentown, Pennsylvania.  My phone
number
is (717) 541-1990.  You can send e-mail directly to me at (in order of
preference):

        kwelks@phoenixland.org
        kwelks@compuserve.com

Finally, I apologize for being so wordy.  Open-ended responses bring out
my
worst tendencies.

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Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 19:44:53 -0400
From: Kris Sarri <ksarri@umich.edu>
To: cpeo-brownfields@igc.org
Subject: Re: Romance & Brownfields Newsgroup Introductions


Tony--

Thanks for arranging the electronic introduction.

I am Kris Sarri and I work at the Department of Housing and Urban
Development on brownfields issues.  At HUD, I help individuals and
communities on how they can use the Department's resources for
brownfields
redevelopment, whether it is to create new housing, parks or jobs.

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Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 09:25:33 -0400
To: cpeo-brownfields@igc.org
From: Ann Goode <anngoode@nemw.org>
Subject: introductions

Tony-

I'm with the Urban Environment Program at the Northeast Midwest
Institute.
I work with Elizabeth Collaton and Charlie Bartsch on the multitude of
issues that fall under the categories of brownfield redevelopment and
smart
growth.

One of the projects we're doing now (in conjunction with ICMA) is case
study research on all the Showcase Communities.  It's a very exciting
project (for people like me) that allows us to take a very detailed look
at
municipal brownfield programs.  Like many other analysts we've studied
state programs in some depth.  States set the standards, sometimes
provide
funding and almost always have some oversight role in clean up efforts.
Cities are in the position to roll brownfield programs out in a manner
most
suited to their community, however, and their approaches vary widely.
We're just getting started with city visits, but will keep the list
posted
as to when a report is expected.

Other current projects: We'll soon publish a paper on transportation and

brownfields and a paper that is an overview of federal agency programs;
we're working with the Congress for New Urbanism on a workbook on infill

development; we're working with the Environmental Law Institute to look
at
the affects of environmental rules on redevelopment/infill.

I spend all other waking hours trying to keep my two little girls
(reasonably) clean, fed and happy.  I recently ordered one of those
"easy
to put together" swing sets off the internet and, though my husband and
i
spent a large chunk of the weekend trying to put it together, it remains

strewn across the yard.  I WILL get major points when it is finally
constructed, however.

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Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 06:54:44 -0700
From: Maxine Leichter <MLEICHTE@EAD.CI.LA.CA.US>
To: cpeo-brownfields@igc.org
Subject: Re: Friday 4/9/99 Brownfields Introductions

For introductions:  I am

Maxine Leichter - LA City Environmental Affairs Department and City
Brownfields
Team

Maxine Leichter
Los Angeles City
Environmental Affairs Department.
201 N. Figueroa St. Room 200
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 580-1072
mleichte@ead.ci.la.ca.us

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From: "Eugene P. Schmittgens, Jr." <EPS@ziercher.com>
To: <cpeo-brownfields@igc.org>
Subject: Re: Romance & Brownfields Newsgroup Introductions

My name is Gene Schmittgens.  I am a shareholder in the St. Louis
(Clayton), Missouri law firm of Ziercher & Hocker.  I have been here for
just under one year,  but have been practicing in the area of
environmental law for over 10 years.  This was not something I set out
to do, but became an environmental lawyer because I was the last one
hired.

I have been active in Brownfield as the outside counsel for a
governmental entity, an author on the topic, and in the development of
various remediation tax credits in both Missouri and Illinois.

Because you asked for outside interests I will tell you that I love
baseball, especially Cardinal's baseball.

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--

[EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: CPEO'S PHONE NUMBER HAS CHANGED
TO 415-405-7751. OUR FAX NUMBER IS STILL THE SAME]

Tony Chenhansa,  Program Coordinator
Center for Public Environmental Oversight (CPEO)
425 Market Street 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA  94105
ph: 415-405-7751 fx: 415-904-7765
e-mail: tonyc@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org

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