A property that was once used for a rail yard and landfill is being cleaned up as part of the Voluntary Remediation Program. Located in Alexandria, Virginia, the 75-acre property is being developed as a part of the Carlyle Development Project. The cleanup consists primarily of excavating contaminated soil and waste. The project is about 75 percent complete and, when finished, will provide about 6.5 million square feet of commercial and residential space.
Program of the Month
Voluntary Remediation
The challenging task of cleaning up contaminated properties becomes less of a liability for owners with guidance from DEQ’s Voluntary Remediation Program.
“This is a non-enforcement program,” Kevin Greene, VRP manager, said. “We work with volunteers to clean up the environment and promote economic development.”
The program provides a framework or guidance to characterize contamination at a property, determine the risk that the contamination has to the environment and the public, and clean up the site.
Since the program began in 1995, 260 properties have entered the program and 120 of those have completed the VRP process, which has resulted in about 2,000 acres available for redevelopment. Administered from DEQ’s central office in Richmond, the program has four full-time and two part-time staff members that manage about 20 projects a month and often consult with the agency’s seven regional offices.
One of the unique aspects of the program is that DEQ can consider cleanup options based on site-specific uses. If the property is being redeveloped for a business, DEQ can consider commercial cleanup levels, Greene said.
“These types of land use controls secure future site use and result in attainable cleanups, thus encouraging the redevelopment of properties,” Greene said.
For example, most VRP sites already have a public water supply, so participants may place a restriction on the deed prohibiting drinking of the ground water. By not having to evaluate the ground water as a drinking water source, cleaning the ground water to the drinking water standard is not as critical.
“The vast majority of our sites are real estate transactions, and we must be sensitive to the fact that time is money in the real estate business,” Greene said.
Most properties in the program (about 100) are manufacturing facilities. Dry cleaners are the second most common sites in the program, followed by land disposal sites, railroad yards and manufactured gas plants.
On average it takes about 20 months for a property owner to complete the VRP process. When the process is completed, DEQ issues the participant a certificate, which is a significant incentive. It represents DEQ’s final action on the site and provides assurance to the owner that the property will not be subject to enforcement action as long as no new issues are discovered. The immunity is transferable to future owners of the site and is looked upon favorably by lending institutions, Green said.
The program accepts properties only where cleanup is not mandated by another state program. Since regional offices handle most of the compliance and enforcement efforts, they play a significant role in determining the eligibility of each site in cooperation with DEQ’s central office.
Greene describes VRP as a significant part of the agency’s brownfields initiative. Brownfields are underutilized properties where real or perceived contamination prevents their redevelopment.
“The program is the motor behind the brownfields boat,” Greene said.
VRP and DEQ’s Brownfields Land Renewal Program often work together to encourage cleanup and redevelopment by providing protection for the owners or buyers of contaminated properties before, during and after a cleanup.
DEQ’s brownfields program provides liability protections for owners and buyers before a property transfer occurs, and an agreement with the EPA prohibits federal enforcement action while a property is enrolled in VRP. Then once the site is clean and receives a VRP certification from DEQ, the agency issues the final liability protection.