envisioned turning an undeveloped and underused parking lot with a long history of industrial occupants into a downtown city park. The Discovery Green Conservancy is a private nonprofit organization formed to raise funds, operate and care for this park. Typically, sights with an industrial past equate to environmental issues. The affected property assessment of this site revealed soils impacted by metals and petroleum hydrocarbons, and groundwater impacted by volatile organic compounds. To remediate this site, impacted soils were properly disposed of at an offsite permitted recycling facility and groundwater was treated with an in-situ bioremediation microorganisms. When the site was remediated to be protective of human health and the environment, it received a VCP Certificate of Completion and construction on the park began. Discovery Green is now a beautiful, vibrant 12-acre park in the heart of downtown Houston that opened to the public in April 2008. The total cost to acquire the land that became Discovery Green was approximately $57 million, and the total cost to build, landscape, and complete the project was approximately $125 million. Since opening in 2008, the park has helped drive convention activity and has served as a catalyst for $625 million in downtown development. Ongoing Issues The Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act exemplifies collaborative approaches to encourage voluntary environmental improvements, an increasingly prominent alternative to traditional regulatory models of environmental protection. However, issues such as the stigmatization of sites, limited amount of awarded grant funds, and disparity in award funding are common hurdles the Brownfields policy currently faces. To resolve these issues the Brownfields Utilization, Investment, and Local Development (BUILD) Act of 2013 was introduced to the 113 Congress on March 7, 2013. This Act proposes to expand eligibility, increase funding for remediation grants, and give priority to small communities including Indian Tribes, rural and low-income areas with a population of less than 15,000. References External links U.S. EPA's Brownfields web site Superfund Gets the Super Shaft, Time Magazine 2002 in the environment United States federal environmental legislation Acts of the 107th United States Congress United States federal legislation articles without infoboxes