An analysis of the economic and environmental impact of the U.S. EPA\u27s Brownfields program in New York and New Jersey from 2009 to 2014 using GIS

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) as part of its mission to protect human health and the environment has developed a Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative designed to empower States, communities and other stakeholders in economic development to work collaboratively to in a timely manner to prevent, assess, safely clean up and sustainably reuse brownfields. In order to effectively carry out the mission of the Brownfields Program, all ten regions share in the same goal of redeveloping brownfields. In this project we explore correlations between median household income and Brownfields funding (i.e., Phase I/Phase II assessments and clean-up grants). Our hypothesis is that the median household income may increase as an effect of EPA funding allocated to respective communities within EPA’s region 2. This includes New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. For this project we focus on grants allocated within New York and New Jersey for the period 2009-2014. The available datasets were analyzed statistically and graphed using ArcGIS. We produced a series of maps summarizing and comparing census data to actual Brownfield sites that received funding during the period in consideration. This presentation captures our progress to date. Our conclusions are constrained by additional analysis that is required, which we expect to perform in the following period