[CPEO-BIF] Winter Olympics spurs brownfields cleanup

[bobh@np.craigslist.org]

British Columbia regulatory moves intended to promote brownfields development

Journal of Commerce
April 16, 2007

by Saul Chernos

With the Winter Olympics just a couple years away, the B.C. government is
continuing to amend brownfields regulations in order to encourage redevelopment of
former industrial properties.

?The Olympics are obviously a big deal for us,? said Alan McCammon, manager of
brownfields and Olympics land remediation for the B.C. Environment ministry.

Speaking at a brownfields conference in Toronto last week, McCammon said the 2010
Winter Games have become a catalyst for redeveloping polluted sites across the
lower mainland and along the corridor leading to Whistler.

The new rules continue a process of tightening requirements yet privatizing some
responsibility for enforcement.

In 1993, a bill to amend provincial waste management rules essentially codified
many existing informal practices. For instance, the province created a formal
process for approving remediations and certifying cleanups, and spelled out
principles of liability more clearly than before.

By 1999, the ministry was accepting opinions regarding sites considered low-risk
from an approved group of private consultants, with government auditors reviewing
roughly 10 percent of applications in order to try and maintain credibility and
public confidence in the process.

?High risk sites will still be overseen by ministry staff,? McCammon said. ?We?ve
recognized there are a fair number of fairly low-risk circumstances, and we?ve
recognized the need for developers to get certainty as early as possible in their
projects.?

McCammon said the ministry has codified the ?letter of comfort? process and
introduced liability protection for local governments and consultants who give
advice, so long as they don?t cause, contribute or exacerbate contamination.

In a new development earlier this year, the province?s brownfields consultants
formed the Contaminated Sites Approved Professionals, a self-governing organization
that, starting in July, will oversee consultant activity and also take over the
ministry?s auditing activities.

?It will be on their honour to establish those procedures,? McCammon explained.
?They will do their own auditing and will self-finance as well. We will detach a
lot of the fees the ministry used to take in and let them run the business
themselves.?

For the entire article, see:
http://joconl.com/article/20070416400

Bob Hersh
CPEO




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