
				Pat Quinn, Governor

Agency Links

Info Centers

To report
environmental
emergencies
only, call the
Illinois Emergency
Management Agency
800-782-7860
217-782-7860
(24 hrs/day)

Environmental Progress - Fall 2003

Brownfields Land Reuse Programs

Thousands of acres are salvaged each year

Illinois EPA cleanup programs were created to help convert undesirable properties - often contaminated with pollutants or hazardous substances - into safe, usable land. Collectively called "brownfields programs," these properties take unusable properties and turn them into viable parcels by eliminating, reducing or controlling the effects of the contaminants. The sites often are abandoned or underutilized; no taxes are paid on them. Few, if any, people are employed at these sites. The brownfields programs change all that by creating property that can utilize existing infrastructure, enhance the tax base and boost employment.

Every year, several thousand acres of previously unusable land is remediated through Illinois EPA cleanup programs. With the Blagojevich Administration's regional comprehensive approach to economic development in Illinois, Opportunity Returns, these programs will focus on the growth needs of communities, generating taxes, employing people and producing goods and services.

Using brownfields for commercial development also leads to a substantial reduction in the need to use "greenfields," or previously undeveloped parcels, thereby preserving farmland, open space and wetlands.

Illinois EPA has successfully integrated the brownfields philosophy of remediation and reuse into most of its cleanup programs.