Sustainable Land Development Today - April 2008 - (Page 20) BROWNFIELD DEVELOPMENT The Ingenuity of a Brownfield Professional Soil contamination and financial challenges made the city fear that Mason Run would be no more than a great idea. About 400 acres of the contaminated sites are located at the northeastern gateway to the city along the River Raisin in an area called Paper Mill Row. Starting in 1917, the area was home to three large paper mills, including the Consolidated Packaging Corporation (CPC) Northside Plant, the western-most site of the three. The plant manufactured corrugatedcardboard shipping stock from 1921 until 1975 and employed 500-600 workers at full production (1965 statistics). Operations included large areas for storage of straw (the raw material for boxboard production). It was also home to a straw pulp mill, paper machines for production of corrugated-shipping stock, box manufacturing and printing, and shipping. A coal-fired power plant provided process steam and plant heat. Before the 1940s, coal cinders and ash from the power plant were used to create a two-foot-thick, gravel-like base for storage of coal and straw and for employee parking areas on more than 42 acres of the plant property, which was virtually all of the land not occupied by plant buildings and other structures. Two concrete process wastewater clarifiers and associated Careful planning was required to replace the excavated basements subsurface vaults and sewers with clean fill where future homes would be built and with cinder/ash were added to the site in the fill where roads and parks would lie. Excavation of filled basements was conducted in phases to match brownfield funding availability late 1950s. Clarifier sludge By John P. Bachner Buried basements, leakage from historical underground storage tanks, and PCBs near an old transformer complicated the reuse of the site, but it was the two-foot-thick layer of coal ash from an onsite coal-fired plant that posed the greatest challenge. T hroughout much of the 20th century, Monroe, Michigan was an industrial city known for its paper production and port facilities. By the latter part of the century, the paper mills and numerous other industrial facilities were shuttered and abandoned, leaving more than 750 acres of brownfields — more than 70-percent of Monroe’s developable land —located near the heart of this city of 20,000 citizens. Next door to these sites are established low- to moderate-income residential neighborhoods populated by retirees on fixed incomes and young families with children; all populations sensitive to the potential health and safety threats posed by the brownfields. was dried in unlined drying beds near the clarifiers before disposal. CPC closed the plant in 1975, and it was abandoned and derelict by the mid 1980s. By 1995, the other two plants also were closed. A Great Idea The city purchased the CPC property in the late 1980s. Located on the River Raisin, less than a mile from downtown Monroe, the property adjoined established 1920-1940-era neighborhoods, which were developed principally as housing for mill workers. Redeveloping the site for industrial purposes would have been inappropriate in the 21st century. Besides, doing so was prohibited by city planning and zoning ordinances. But residential development was entirely possible, especially because of the existing water, sewer, road, and other infrastructure, which was projected to be sufficient to sustain up to a 500-home residential neighborhood without significant upgrade or modification. The city envisioned a sustainable, New Urbanism neighborhood that reflected the character and style of the established city neighborhoods and and home-sales rates. 20 April 2008 Sustainable Land Development Today
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