Services
Brownfields Assessment
For Brownfields Assessment contact:
Description
Decades of development and industrial activity have left the centers of many of our
cities contaminated with oil and hazardous wastes. Because the cost of cleaning up this
unfortunate legacy can make property reuse sometimes infeasible, developers have often
preferred to build on virgin or at least uncontaminated land. As a result, so-called
brownfields have been long ignored or untended.
To counter this pattern, federal and state brownfield redevelopment initiatives offer
incentives to bring contaminated land back into productive use. By innovatively grouping a
set of engineering and legal tools, governments encourage property stakeholders to pursue
collective cleanup and eventual reuse of brownfield sites.
OTO has completed brownfield redevelopment projects throughout Massachusetts. Our
skill mix is ideally suited for this type of redevelopment work. We offer our clients:
- Knowledge of state and federal brownfield programs
- Understanding of special project funding opportunities
- Technical expertise to assess contamination and interpret its significance for redevelopment
- Sensitivity to regulatory and unique community concerns
- Ability to assess and interpret the importance of contamination impacts to building systems
An additional, important part of cleanup solutions for brownfield sites are institutional
controls. Effective institutional controls are founded on the type of sound, risk-based
decision-making at which OTO excels. Our risk characterization experience is among the broadest
in New England. This, combined with our other strengths, gives us the insight to develop and
implement brownfield projects in a way that satisfies both developers and community stakeholders.
