skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Site recycling: From Brownfield to football field

Journal Article · · Environmental Protection
OSTI ID:86465
;  [1]
  1. HDR Engineering Inc., Charlotte, NC (United States)

The Carolina Panther`s new home, Carolinas Stadium, will be impressive. It will include a 75,000-seat stadium, about 2,000 parking spaces, and a practice facility equipped with three full-sized football fields, all located on 30 acres bordering the central business district of Charlotte, NC. Fans of the NFL expansion team may never know that, until recently, 13 of those 30 acres were a former state Superfund site contaminated by a commercial scrapyard that had operated from the early 1930s to 1983. The salvage of nonferrous metals from lead-acid batteries, copper from transformers and other electrical equipment, and ferrous metal scrap from junk automobiles at the Smith Metal and Iron (SMI) site had left a complex contamination legacy. The soil contained lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), lesser amounts of semivolatiles (polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs), and volatile organic compounds and petroleum hydrocarbons. The site had remained dormant, like many former industrial sites that have come be called {open_quotes}brownfields,{close_quotes} for nearly a decade when in 1993, Charlotte was selected as the future home of the Carolina Panthers, a National Football League expansion team. The city was able to attract the team in part by offering to redevelop the site, a prime location adjacent to the downtown area. An eight-month-long site remediation effort by HDR Engineering Inc. was completed March 31, on schedule for a June 1996 unveiling of the team`s new facility.

OSTI ID:
86465
Journal Information:
Environmental Protection, Vol. 6, Issue 7; Other Information: PBD: Jul 1995
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English