BROWNFIELD LEGISLATION

Respondents to last week's Quick Poll regarding brownfield redevelopment incentives, now under consideration by the Florida Legislature, unanimously expressed that the process is still too expensive. Michael Goldstein, an environmental attorney for Akerman Senterfitt in Miami, is a brownfield activist and a founder and past president of Florida's Brownfields Association. He recently established the Goldstein Brownfields Foundation, which aims to encourage legislators to adopt enhancements to Florida's brownfield program. Here are his thoughts:

"The redevelopment of brownfields in the state of Florida remains too expensive. It was that way before the passage of the Florida Brownfield Redevelopment Act passed in 1997 and has remained that way. It will continue to be much too expensive and risky even if the proposed legislation passes because it doesn't go far enough.

"What's proposed is good and important, but it's not meaningful enough. The fundamental fatal flaw is that it doesn't provide nearly enough money. We have one of the most anemic cleanup support programs in the country from a financial perspective.Currently the annual cap on tax credits awarded by the state for clean up is $2 million and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has never supported increasing that cap. The legislators who have championed the brownfield legislation have never supported increasing the cap. That cap is simply a drop in the ocean. We could spend that much on a single site and not even get through the cleanup.