brownfield confusion

Larry,
There are a few reasons for this change between versions.

For v4, in general, we wanted to refocus all SS and LT credits on the actual site elements (including soil, water bodies, vegetation, etc), and less on buildings located within the project boundary. Thus, we removed building-related contamination from the SS/LT credits to keep them focused on soil/groundwater contamination. There are other examples of this shift, including moving IPM out of SS and into EQ. In the v4 credits, we're trying to be very clear about the delineation between inside and outside a building.

Building contamination- namely asbestos- is also very commonly regulated now and remediation is often already required by jurisdictions, whereas in the past it was not.

So, yes, this removes an existing contaminated building from consideration unless the soil or groundwater has been impacted (contaminated) by it. If there are contaminated building materials buried down in the soil, for example, remediation related to that would contribute to the credit.

Also, a Phase I/II ESA is not required outside of the U.S., so the requirements were rewritten to apply to projects all over the world.

Theresa, thanks for the reply. I had the same question and understand that USGBC intent is to just focus on the site and not the building. However, if there is an existing building that contains asbestos, that building is part of the existing site. It is true that asbestos remediation is required in most, if not all jurisdictions in the United States, but the same can be said about contaminated sites. It doesn't make sense to me that asbestos remediation was dropped from this credit. The purpose of this credit is to encourage infill and asbestos remediation, which is very costly, contributes.

Gotta say, I'm disappointed and equally vexed as Helen on the building-related asbestos here.

I also agree with Helen and Emily. The removal of building-related asbestos is disappointing. Even if asbestos remediation is required, encouraging building owners to reuse these buildings and thus deal with the asbestos is still an appropriate thing to reward. Just like rewarding building owners when they build on brownfield sites. They are required to deal with the contamination, but you are rewarding the choice to select a brownfield over a greenfield.

For what it is worth, I agree with no longer counting asbestos removal as a brownfield site. We encounter asbestos on pretty much every renovation and projects aren't doing anything differently for LEED than they would be doing anyway. I like the LEED points that encourage a change in behavior and never felt like abating asbestos was something being done as an optional sustainability measure but rather as an expected and pretty acceptable cost of doing a renovation project. Obviously some projects could be encouraged to do more to abate, but the LEED credit wasn't doing anything to encourage abatement beyond the bare minimum. Soil and groundwater contamination that requires remediation is a bigger hurdle and I like that owners that choose to tackle this hurdle are given extra recognition.

What's really broken about this credit is including priority designation via QCT or DDA. That is meant to identify really wealthy areas with limited available low-income housing options and provide developers access to additional funding for low-income development. Suddenly every single project in affluent neighborhoods gets 2 extra LEED points while actually worsening the condition that led to the QCT / DDA designation in the first place (unless it happens to be a low-income housing LEED project). This language is an embarrassment to the USGBC.