Property Characteristics of Contaminated Land in Environmental Cleanup Programs in New York State

This article reports empirical research on the property characteristics and land uses of contaminated properties in New York State in the two principle environmental cleanup programs. This research investigated 321 contaminated properties in New York. The authors analyze the characteristics of contaminated property to discover information that research using a case study design with a small number of properties has not found. We also investigate similarities and differences in the properties that enter the two most important environmental cleanup programs in the United States. Some of their results are unexpected and have implications for public works management, including location and size data for the brownfield properties and both the past land uses and proposed future land uses of these contaminated properties after remediation.