Contamination and remediation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Contamination and remediation - Essay Example The contaminated land may be contaminated either by low or high concentrates hazardous wastes or pollution but are potential enough to be reused after remediation processes. But the land which is severely contaminated by such contaminants does not come under brownfield classification. It has also been seen that there are few cases where the owners are â€Å"not willing to transfer the brownfield or put it into productive reuse†, as those of Mothballed brownfields in United States. It is because these may cause blight, threaten public health and the environment and even hold back economic development and revitalization i.e. staking social, economic as well as environmental wellbeing.2 The extent of cleaning and the costs involved in the remediation process wholly depends upon the type, amount and area of contamination. The standards of cleanup adopted also influence the cleanup process. For example the clean up standards would be more stringent if the property or land is to be used for residential purposes and less strict if to be used for industrial purposes as the exposure to the contaminants would be quite less in this case. And the types of the contaminants too determine the cost while clean up process. For example if the groundwater of the site is found contaminated the cost of remediation process will be much higher than if just the soil is found contaminated. The costs of the cleanup to the property owner can also be contributed by other parties such as previous owners if they too are found responsible for contributing towards the contamination. (footnote 1) It has been seen that due to costs involved in the safe standards of cleaning processes of contaminated sites, most of them usually sit idle and unused for huge number of years. It is because the even the worth of the property after cleanup is much less than the costs of