Sorta libertarian, sorta conservative, never poltically correct either way, dedicated to sarcasm and a refusal to grow up. That would be me.
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Thursday, January 19, 2006
What Cleveland REALLY Needs
Not that long ago, there was a story in the PD about how much longer it takes Cleveland residents who work in the suburbs to get to work if they take RTA instead of driving. There was only the obliquest reference to “industrial sprawl”, and none at all to its causes.
Meanwhile, empty industrial properties abound. I live in Maple Heights, which lost 1,200+ industrial jobs in the 1990s from only two companies (Lucas Aerospace and Aluminum Smelting). The Lucas site is still empty, and “the Smelts” (where I used to work) is largely unutilized as well. Where I work, I can look out the window and see the old Midland Steel property, now empty and unused. I used to work for Kirkwood Industries, its campus is largely unutilized as well.
Companies going out of business and being replaced by new ones is nothing new. What’s new is the considerations new places must take into account. Despite the existing infrastructure (all three places I just mentioned have their own railroad access and are not far from freeways) already in place at so-called “brownfields”, it’s a lot less risky to build a new plant out in Portage or Medina County, or even further out.
The reason for this is something called CERCLA. It’s a federal law saying that if you have a financial interest in a property, you can be held responsible for its complete cleanup if any contamination is ever found there. It can be fifty year old stuff that was disposed of according to the laws of the time by some long defunct entity, and it could be something that could easily be contained rather than cleaned. It doesn’t matter. Even more dangerous is the fact that your lenders could be held liable.
CERCLA is the child of Love Canal, one of the most misunderstood events in recent US history. The common perception: corporate greed led to irresponsible disposal which led to the poisoning of a neighborhood. Actually, it was the Niagara Falls School Board that forced Hooker Chemical to sell them their old dump site, and it was same school board that, after having built a new school, sold the “surplus” land to developers. Government looks out for itself though, and CERCLA came to be.
Potential CERCLA liability, not crime, unions, or “racism”, is what keeps expanding businesses from locating in “brownfields”. While such locations can be cleared for development, the process is expensive and time consuming. Meanwhile companies continue to develop in the suburbs or exurbs, where carless inner city residents cannot reach them.
CERCLA needs to be radically revised. Basically, if a county has a certain level of unemployment (say 150% of the national average), CERCLA liability should be waived for any company which locates on an unused industrial property, as well as for its lenders. In order to ensure environmental responsibility, perhaps ISO 14000 registration within two years could be required.
This would most likely have to come from the GOP. As an example of how the national Democratic Party thinks of CERCLA, consider this. During the early days of the Clinton Administration, there was talk of prosecuting “polluting” industries located in disproportionately minority areas for civil rights violations based on “environmental racism”. This move was only squelched when big city mayors, mostly Democrats themselves, gave birth to porcupines (breech presentation) at the thought of losing even more jobs in their cities.
Not that long ago, there was a story in the PD about how much longer it takes Cleveland residents who work in the suburbs to get to work if they take RTA instead of driving. There was only the obliquest reference to “industrial sprawl”, and none at all to its causes.
Meanwhile, empty industrial properties abound. I live in Maple Heights, which lost 1,200+ industrial jobs in the 1990s from only two companies (Lucas Aerospace and Aluminum Smelting). The Lucas site is still empty, and “the Smelts” (where I used to work) is largely unutilized as well. Where I work, I can look out the window and see the old Midland Steel property, now empty and unused. I used to work for Kirkwood Industries, its campus is largely unutilized as well.
Companies going out of business and being replaced by new ones is nothing new. What’s new is the considerations new places must take into account. Despite the existing infrastructure (all three places I just mentioned have their own railroad access and are not far from freeways) already in place at so-called “brownfields”, it’s a lot less risky to build a new plant out in Portage or Medina County, or even further out.
The reason for this is something called CERCLA. It’s a federal law saying that if you have a financial interest in a property, you can be held responsible for its complete cleanup if any contamination is ever found there. It can be fifty year old stuff that was disposed of according to the laws of the time by some long defunct entity, and it could be something that could easily be contained rather than cleaned. It doesn’t matter. Even more dangerous is the fact that your lenders could be held liable.
CERCLA is the child of Love Canal, one of the most misunderstood events in recent US history. The common perception: corporate greed led to irresponsible disposal which led to the poisoning of a neighborhood. Actually, it was the Niagara Falls School Board that forced Hooker Chemical to sell them their old dump site, and it was same school board that, after having built a new school, sold the “surplus” land to developers. Government looks out for itself though, and CERCLA came to be.
Potential CERCLA liability, not crime, unions, or “racism”, is what keeps expanding businesses from locating in “brownfields”. While such locations can be cleared for development, the process is expensive and time consuming. Meanwhile companies continue to develop in the suburbs or exurbs, where carless inner city residents cannot reach them.
CERCLA needs to be radically revised. Basically, if a county has a certain level of unemployment (say 150% of the national average), CERCLA liability should be waived for any company which locates on an unused industrial property, as well as for its lenders. In order to ensure environmental responsibility, perhaps ISO 14000 registration within two years could be required.
This would most likely have to come from the GOP. As an example of how the national Democratic Party thinks of CERCLA, consider this. During the early days of the Clinton Administration, there was talk of prosecuting “polluting” industries located in disproportionately minority areas for civil rights violations based on “environmental racism”. This move was only squelched when big city mayors, mostly Democrats themselves, gave birth to porcupines (breech presentation) at the thought of losing even more jobs in their cities.