Brownfields Training Workshops

The extension program in the area of Brownfields remediation and restoration has developed a training module on Ecological Restoration of Brownfields. This has been done in cooperation with training programs for brownfield technicians that are sponsored by USEPA Region 3. The Ecological Restoration training module is an intensive one-week course that constitutes part of a comprehensive training program that runs for several weeks. The Ecological Restoration module includes classroom and laboratory teaching and practical field experience at a brownfield site. The module has been taught as part of training programs in Pittsburgh and Bristol where Carnegie Mellon University and Bucks Community College, respectively, coordinate the overall training programs. The primary goal of these training programs is to provide employment opportunities for residents of areas that are impacted by brownfields.

Rick Stehouwer and Ken Tamminga, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture developed the Ecological Restoration training module. Subjects covered in the module include:
· Basic soil science
· Soil pollution and degradation
· Remediation of contaminated, disturbed, and degraded soils
· Risk assessment
· Brownfields as recoverable ecosystems
· Recovered brownfields as places
· Ecological design of brownfields
· Vegetation strategies for brownfields

Perhaps the most important aspect of the training module is the inclusion of field experience at an actual brownfield site. The field practicum is designed to provide trainees with an opportunity to practice the concepts taught in the classroom and laboratory portions of the module.

In Pittsburgh our field practicum was conducted at the Nine Mile Run brownfield, a huge slag pile. The pile consists of strongly alkaline, extremely coarse textured, excessively well-drained material with no organic matter. Our field practicum at this site involved characterizing the slag material, and then installing several test plots on which amendments such as compost, ash, river dredge, drinking water treatment sludge, and short fiber paper sludge were applied either singly or in various combinations. All plots were seeded with the same grass/legume seed mix. The plot that produced the best vegetative cover was amended with a combination of river dredge, yard trimmings compost and biosolids incinerator ash.

In Bristol our field practicum was conducted on a 0.75 acre fill and rubble area located at the Rohm and Haas Chemical plant. Here our field practicum involved characterizing the existing soil base, determining what amendments would aid in establishing plant growth, designing a native plant community, and seeding and planting native warm season grasses, forbes, and trees. The "soil" material located here was sandy and coarse textured fill, extremely low in organic matter, with numerous stones, cobble, and rubble.