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EPA Helps Smooth the Way for Navy Yard Redevelopment - Agency Assures Redeveloper that Contamination is Navy’s Responsibility

Release Date: 3/15/1999
Contact Information: Ruth Podems, (215) 814-5540

PHILADELPHIA - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given written assurance to the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation that the Navy will continue to be responsible for any environmental contamination on the Philadelphia Navy Yard property when the site is redeveloped.  This responsibility would still apply if the property were leased, subleased or re-sold.

PIDC is the nonprofit corporation created by the city, state and Delaware River Port Authority to manage redevelopment of the yard.  The assurance applies to an 825-acre parcel of  Navy Yard property east of Broad Street which the corporation has purchased for conversion to a multi-use commercial/industrial campus.

The assurance guarantees that the EPA will not take enforcement action or require cleanup or reimbursement for cleanup from PIDC, its transferees, lessees, or successors.  This assurance, and others like it nationwide, resulted from the passage of the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Act of 1990, which was intended to pave the way for putting retired military bases back into productive re-use.

The EPA provided a similar assurance to the Kvaerner Philadelphia Shipyard last year.


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