Tribune Review: Advocates Eye New Life for Old Asbestos Sites

Tribune Review Newspaper Discusses Asbestos Abatement at Old Mills From the Tribune-Review: When the nation's top environmental official arrived in Western Pennsylvania for a conference on reclaiming abandoned industrial [[asbestos]] sites Monday, the first thing he said he noticed was all the black and gold local people were wearing in support of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Unfortunately, the football team's namesake -- the once flourishing steel industry -- has left a legacy of older, obsolete mills that will take a multidisciplinary approach to clean up, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson said at the conference in Ambridge, Beaver County.

"We need to convert those environmental eyesores back into a source of pride," he said. "We're taking problem properties and transforming them back into community assets." Carnegie Mellon University's Western Pennsylvania Brownfields Center is hosting a two-day workshop in Ambridge to raise awareness of brownfields and discuss plans for a $60 million redevelopment in the borough by the Australian Moltoni Corp.

Brownfields are abandoned industrial or commercial properties that have either actual or perceived environmental contamination -- ranging from asbestos to old tires -- that could deter expansion or redevelopment because of the costs associated with reclaiming them. Carnegie Mellon's center helps those communities form the public and private partnerships necessary to entice developers to build on brownfields, Lange said. The center also brings together economic, business, environment and engineering experts to devise efficient ways to market and remediate the former industrial sites, such as combining sites to get deals on insurance.

Examples of brownfield redevelopment in Pittsburgh include The Waterfront shopping complex in Homestead, formerly occupied by Carnegie Steel; the $243 million residential development Summerset at Frick Park in Squirrel Hill, a former slag dump for steel mills; and the $104 million Pittsburgh Technology Center in Hazelwood, a former steel mill site.