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Brownfields Success Stories
RCRA: Preventive Maintenance for Potential Brownfields
Once the leading steel supplier to the construction industry, the Bethlehem Steel plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania ceased operations in 1995. Like so many other properties in this area of the Lehigh Valley in Northampton County, the site might have been classified as a "brownfield"—an idle, abandoned or underused property with uncertain levels of contamination. In fact, in May 1998 Northampton County was awarded a Brownfields Assessment Pilot from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create an inventory and conduct assessments on former industrial properties within the valley. But Bethlehem Steel had been operating under guidelines set by the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1976; to receive a RCRA permit that allowed the plant's operation, Bethlehem Steel's owners had to demonstrate they were capable of managing and cleaning up hazardous wastes associated with steel production.
Since the plant's closing, the property's owners have been working with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) to clean up the site in accordance with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's own brownfields law, which sets cleanup standards for former commercial and industrial sites and provides liability releases to property owners that comply. The property will one day house the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Industrial History, as well as a shopping and entertainment center covering 160 acres of the former steel site, on the banks of the Lehigh River. Over the next 20 years, additional redevelopment projects are planned that will turn the once-eminent industrial facility into a state-of-the-art entertainment and cultural complex. For more information on RCRA and the Bethlehem Steel site, contact Paul Gotthold of EPA Region 3 at (215) 814-3410.