[CPEO-BIF] Albany editorial on New York State's Brownfields program

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Clean up this program
Our opinion: The state needs to fix its abused brownfields program  
before more money is wasted.

Editorial Board
Albany Times-Union (NY)
June 18, 2013

New York’s Brownfield Cleanup Program could well be the poster child  
for the elusive waste and abuse that governors and lawmakers are  
forever vowing to root out.

The waste is in the billions of dollars. The abuse is how a program  
that was meant to clean up the environment and spur some economic  
development has turned into a cash cow for high-end developers,  
courtesy of taxpayers.

The program had a worthy goal: to use tax credits to encourage  
cleanup and development of contaminated sites, like defunct gas  
stations and old industrial sites.

But the program has funded relatively little cleanup for the money.  
Over the past decade, about 400 sites have been remediated, out of  
thousands of brownfields around the state. The cost to taxpayers:  
$3.3 billion.

...

For the entire editorial, see
http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion/clean-up-this-program/25393/


--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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