Poison to Ivy

Since 1995, 150 former industrial sites in the Twin Cities area have been converted from contaminated land to profitable use. The cleanup of these “brownfields” has strengthened the local economy.

November 2006 | by Fran Howard

The former Globe Building Materials site on St. Paul’s East Side, now undergoing remediation, is a prime example of a brownfield—full of toxic chemicals, contaminated soils, and mysterious gunk, all needing to be removed before the site can be reused.

Photograph by Craig Bares

So government entities like DEED have stepped in. Over the past two decades, they’ve contributed government funds and leveraged more than $2 billion in private redevelopment money. Local development authorities have used these funds to reclaim nearly 2,000 acres of brownfield properties throughout the state, with the vast majority in St. Paul, Minneapolis, and the first-ring suburbs. Brownfield sites, both those already cleaned and those scheduled for cleanup, are expected to increase the regional tax base by more than $55.5 million a year when all of these projects are complete. Without that public funding to help with cleanup costs, most brownfield sites would still be vacant.

“We’ve taken for granted a lot of the new development, whether housing, commercial, or industrial, particularly in the metro area,” says Paul Hyde, part-owner of

Real Estate Recycling. Without brownfield cleanup, he asserts, “Minneapolis and St. Paul would be struggling.”

Industrial Archeology

“If no one would touch these sites, they would not pose a significant threat to public health,” says Ken Haberman, president of Landmark Environmental, a Bloomington company that specializes in brownfield cleanup. On most of these sites, the problem begins when the backhoe arrives to uncover the contaminants that previous testing had revealed. “Brownfield excavation soil,” he notes, “is not playground quality,”

In 2003, Landmark Environmental completed cleanup of eight acres on St. Paul’s West Side Flats, across the river from downtown. The portion of the land that Haberman’s company cleaned up was once home to construction-equipment manufacturer American Hoist & Derrick Company (Amhoist), which closed its St. Paul operation in 1985. The property now houses a U.S. Bancorp office building. Contamination on the site included agricultural chemicals, petroleum tanks, and solvents. The total cleanup cost hit $2.4 million, with funds provided by DEED and other agencies.

Most brownfields aren’t as contaminated as the Amhoist site; usually, cleanup crews like Haberman’s don’t need to wear anything more than disposable protective jumpsuits, hardhats, and steel-toed boots to get the site cleaned up; for the really tough jobs, they bring in breathing apparatus.