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While working on an article about a brownfield cleanup project I came across some unique ways to get these spendy projects done.

Brownfield sites are real properties (usually former industrial sites) where redevelopment may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance or contaminants.

You hear a lot about the big brownfield sites, like the 366-acre former Reynolds Aluminum site in Troutdale or the Zidell site near Portland’s South Waterfront. But they can come in all shapes and sizes.

The problem is that a lot of these bigger sites qualify as a superfund site and are available to a wide pool of funding. But it’s much harder to find funding for smaller cleanup projects, like an old industrial lot or a former gas station.

These matters have only been made worse by the recession, when public funding has become even more nonexistent for these projects.

Funding for most cleanup projects starts at the federal level. The Environmental Protection Agency has grant funds available for projects that meet its criteria.

But even at the state level, there are funds available.

Business Oregon – the state-run economic development department – has a low-interest loan program in which site owners can borrow funds for cleanups.

While the loans can be really beneficial in saving these projects money, Chuck Harman, the Department of Environmental Quality’s manager of the NW Regional Cleanup Program, mentioned another way.

A lot of these industrial sites were in operation throughout the 1970s and 1980s. During those decades general liability insurance covered environmental cleanups. Thus, anyone who owns a site now, as well as the previous owner who at one time had the proper insurance policy, can file a claim.

As Harman pointed out, this has become a very beneficial way to get funds for a cleanup site and could perhaps be the reason development on it pencils out.

“No matter what the case may be, you should do some insurance archeology on these type of sites,” he said.