Brownfield re-development :Conceptual Site Model Development Case Study

Case Study: Brownfield re-development: Prime real estate location in a growing City

Re-development Site Study Area:

A former Brownfield at a current prime real estate location is proposed for re-development for residential and commercial purposes. This Brownfield area used to have several heavy industries during the 1960s. These included metal smelters, tanning of leather and processing and packaging in industries including light bulbs manufacturing. New soil was added to the site to cap the previous soil cover, however with the proposed redevelopment, the City wants to ensure the existing capped chemical constituents will not adversely affect the ecological receptors are this beloved City park.

In the late 1990s due to economic boom and the City’s growth, this area was rezoned for possible residential use. It is a beautiful river front prime real estate potential that has attracted a number of developers. The river is slow moving and has a wide channel which provides a habitat for waterfowls including the Mallard duck. The Mallard ducks are loved by many, evident from the visitors who feed them bread as they take walks along the river front.

The park that spreads around the project area (Figure 1) has now become a habitat for several wildlife, which have become of great importance to a variety of City dwellers in an otherwise ‘concrete jungle.’ Because of the park’s semi-natural maintenance, other small animals such as rabbits have been seen to occupy the lands. In addition to the Mallard duck other birds such as American Robin and Woodpeckers have been seen to frequent the parks. As such, a local Bird Watchers Club has evolved, called the River Landers. This is a volunteer group that meets at the park twice a week to enjoy the colourful displays of the birds and also collect information about the birds of the area. The River Landers carry out ‘Ecology & Nature’ volunteer sessions at various elementary schools in the City. Given the linkage of Birds to worms, the River Landers also takes school children to the bank to dig for earthworms as a learning activity about trophic food level.

As part of the redevelopment of this Brownfield, excavation of soil materials will take place in order to add reinforcement to the river bank and provide structural stabilization given the proximity to the river. Excavation of site for such engineering works and City utilities (sewage systems, fiber internet cables, electrical cables etc.) are expected for the project area marked in figure 1. Additionally, previous Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) phase 1 & 2 conducted on the site revealed a very elevated groundwater table, whose recharge zone is marked on figure 1 (found under the bridge). This ESA phase 1& 2 included 123 test holes to analyze composite soil samples.

Both groundwater and soil samples revealed heavy metals presence. Table 1 shows the range and arithmetic mean of metal concentrations from all test holes drilled. Only Barium, Copper, Lead and Zinc were found to be above the soil guideline for both aquatic and terrestrial organisms. Table 2 indicated the heavy metals in the groundwater samples, all of which have exceeded maximum concentration allowable for avian species, mammal wildlife species as well as for humans.

Table 1. Heavy metals concentrations from 123 test holes at the project area.

Table 2. Summary of heavy metals contaminants in the groundwater.

Assignment:

For this exercise review the class notes from lecture 4 and appropriate sections of the following supplied guidance materials as listed below (these are file names in your Assignment 2 CANVAS Channel):

1. US EPA_Generic_endpoints_2004: (Sections 3&4)
2. US EPA_Guideline_ERA_1998: (Section 3)
3. US EPA_ERA Framework_1992: (Section 2)

Then prepare a 5-page short report (1.5 spacing and 12 size font) in response to questions 1 (a)-(e) and 2 described below:

1. Complete an ERA Problem Formulation stage by responding to the following questions and providing descriptive answers (3 pages max):
a. What is the ecological system at risk?
b. What is (are) the stressor (s)?
c. What are your assessment end point(s)? Explain how you arrived at your decision. d. What measurements of endpoints did you select and why?
e. How might the area stakeholders assist in your problem formulation stage (assuming they were already consulted in the planning phase for this ERA)?

2. Construct a Conceptual Site Model and provide a summary description of your model (model and description - 2 pages max).

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