Brownfield Opportunities

The four programs

Superfund (EPA NPL)

The National Priorities List — the most contaminated sites in the US under EPA's CERCLA authority. ~1,908 sites. Strongest remediation data: documents, ECHO enforcement, AI summaries, milestone dates.

Brownfields (EPA ACRES)

~36,000 brownfield properties tracked by EPA's Assessment, Cleanup and Redevelopment Exchange System. Former gas stations, factories, and rail yards. Acreage data is not available from EPA's source.

FUDS (US Army Corps)

~8,800 Formerly Used Defense Sites — military land conveyed out of federal ownership before 1986, where DoD still has cleanup obligations. USACE tracks eligibility and active projects. ~66% lack digitized polygon boundaries.

BRAC (DoD Base Closures)

27 installations closed under Base Realignment and Closure rounds. Large-acreage sites (often 500–4,000+ acres) with existing utilities, roads, and sometimes grid connections.

Map overlays

★Confirmed deals

10 confirmed hyperscale/colo data-center projects already built on brownfield or former-industrial land (Google/Widows Creek, AWS/Susquehanna, Aligned/Conesville, etc.) — reference points for what a successful conversion looks like.

◆Retired industrial

~660 large retired industrial sites nationwide that ceased EPA GHGRP reporting — ~530 manufacturing (chemical plants, smelters, steel/paper mills, cement, glass, refineries, auto-assembly) plus ~125 mining (mostly coal mines / prep plants). A screening signal — a former smelter, mill, or refinery may retain reusable grid infrastructure (not confirmed available or still connected; the overlay isn't yet joined to transmission/closure evidence). These often sit outside the four programs above.

Siting scores explained

DC composite score (0–100)

Weighted rubric for siting a data-center load. Positive weights sum to 100: transmission distance (16 pts), voltage class (14), substation proximity (12), grid inheritance from a large co-located / retired / nuclear plant (8), acreage (20), gas pipeline (10), logistics — highway + rail (6), readiness signals (14). Then subtractive penalties: −18 for a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area, up to −10 for Very-High FEMA wildfire/drought risk, and up to −8 for a restrictive state regulatory climate (DC-lens only). The result is clamped to 0–100. Returns N/A when no transmission data is available (can't assess power access ≠ a bad site).

Generation score (0–100)

Weighted rubric for siting new power generation — weighted differently because what suits a 200 MW compute load ≠ a 200 MW solar/gas build. Positive weights sum to 100: acreage (24 pts, the dominant constraint), transmission-to-export (18), substation interconnection (14), voltage headroom (12), gas pipeline (10), grid reuse — repowering a retired plant's interconnection (8), ISO/RTO market access (8), readiness (6). It has no active-plant component (you are the plant) and gives no credit for active reuse (occupied land is a liability for a ground-up build). Carries the same flood (−18) and climate (−10) penalties and the same transmission gate as the DC lens, but not the regulatory penalty (a DC moratorium doesn't block a power plant).

DC tier (Edge / Colo / Hyperscale / Mega)

Quick-filter bucket derived from acreage + transmission distance + voltage class. Used by the persona buttons and ?dc_tier= URL parameter. Separate from the 0–100 composite score.

Datacenter-ready

EPA's official RE-Powering designation: Superfund sites with ≥50 acres, electric transmission, and water service area. ~821 sites. EPA's own flag, not a computed score.

Hyperscale-ready

Sites meeting the hyperscale tier threshold: ≥100 acres, ≥230 kV transmission within 1 mile. ~250 sites across all four programs.

Generation-ready

Sites scoring ≥75 on the Generation lens — strong land, grid export, and market combination. ~114 sites.

Infrastructure signals

Transmission line

Miles to the nearest HIFLD high-voltage line, plus its voltage (kV). Source: HIFLD Electric Power Transmission Lines (~52k polylines).

Substation

Miles to the nearest HV substation (≥69 kV). Source: OpenStreetMap power=substation via Overpass API. HIFLD substations went private in 2025.

Power plant

Miles to the nearest plant, its capacity (MW), and primary fuel. Co-located coal/gas plants ≥500 MW within 1 mile earn the Grid Inherit signal — they may carry stranded FERC interconnection agreements worth hundreds of millions in avoided queue costs. Source: HIFLD (~13,400 EIA-860 plants).

Gas pipeline

Miles to the nearest interstate or intrastate natural gas pipeline. Relevant for behind-the-meter generation. Source: HIFLD (~33k polylines).

Highway / Rail

Miles to the nearest primary road (Census TIGER S1100) and railroad (Census TIGER). Logistics signals for construction and supply chains.

Flood zone

FEMA NFHL zone code. Sites in Special Flood Hazard Areas (Zone A/AE/V/VE) receive a −18 point penalty in both scores. Sites with no FEMA data are not penalized.

Natural-hazard risk

FEMA National Risk Index county composite plus three DC-relevant hazard ratings — wildfire (insurability / continuity), drought (cooling-water), and heat wave (cooling load). The worst of wildfire/drought drives a climate penalty (−10 Very High, −5 Relatively High) in both scores; heat wave is shown but not penalized. Source: FEMA NRI county FeatureServer.

Retired power plant

Miles to the nearest large (≥100 MW) retired dispatchable plant from EIA-860M. A retired plant ≤1 mile is the strongest grid-inheritance signal — stranded interconnection with no active load competing for it (the Conesville / Widows Creek pattern). Drives the Ret. Plant badge and full grid-inheritance scoring credit. Source: EIA Form EIA-860M.

IRA energy community

Whether the site is in an Inflation Reduction Act energy community (coal-closure tract or fossil-fuel-employment county) — a +10pp ITC/PTC bonus on a clean-energy build. Source: DOE NETL 2024 layers.

Opportunity Zone

Treasury-designated QOZ tract status and whether it is Rural (~700 of 8,765 tracts). Rural OZ sites also qualify for IRA clean energy community credits. Source: HUD FeatureServer.

ISO / RTO

Regional transmission organization: PJM, MISO, ERCOT, CAISO, SPP, NYISO, ISO-NE, or non-RTO. Affects interconnection queue access and electricity market structure. Source: EIA Atlas.

Climate zone

IECC/ASHRAE zone (e.g. 5B, 3A) from DOE Building America county data. Cooler zones mean lower cooling-energy overhead (lower PUE).

Readiness signals

Cleanup Complete

Superfund sites formally deleted from the NPL — EPA certifies cleanup meets health and environmental standards. ~300 of 1,908 NPL sites.

Active Reuse

Sites in active reuse per EPA's RedevelopmentAppSitePoints. Superfund-only.

EPA Candidate

EPA's official data-center reuse designation: ≥50 acres, electric transmission, water service area. ~821 sites.

Fed Fast Lane (EO 14318)

Executive Order 14318 (July 2025) created NEPA categorical exclusions and fast-tracked Army Corps permits for qualifying data center developments on Superfund and brownfield sites.

OZ / OZ·Rural

Qualified Opportunity Zone status. Rural OZ sites receive the higher IRA bonus (+10pp PTC/ITC) and a 30% OZ basis step-up vs. 15% standard.

Land Ready

EPA Sitewide Ready for Anticipated Use (SWRAU) — EPA's own determination that all of a site's land is ready for its anticipated use. The strongest public land-availability signal. ~940 Superfund sites meet the measure.

IRA / IRA·Coal

Inflation Reduction Act energy community (coal-closure tract = "IRA·Coal", or fossil-fuel-employment county). +10pp ITC/PTC bonus on a paired clean-energy build.

Ret. Plant / Grid Inherit / Nuclear

Grid-inheritance signals: a large retired plant ≤1 mi (Ret. Plant), a large active coal/gas plant ≤1 mi (Grid Inherit), or an operating nuclear plant ≥500 MW ≤5 mi (Nuclear — the AWS/Susquehanna PPA pattern). Each implies an inheritable / nearby high-voltage interconnection.

Water

An active CWA/NPDES discharge permit on the site (EPA ECHO) — a proxy for legacy industrial water infrastructure (intake, treated-effluent rights). Water is the #2 DC siting constraint after grid.

Climate / Zoning (risk)

Red risk badges that lower the score: Climate flags Very-High FEMA wildfire/drought (−10); Zoning flags a restrictive state regulatory climate — moratorium bills, by-right repeals, ratepayer cost-shift laws (−8, DC-lens only).

How to use this tool

Map view

Click any marker to open the site detail panel. Markers are sized by acreage. Zoom in to see all sites in a dense region — markers are decimated at low zoom for performance.

Filters

The gear (⚙) button opens filters: program, NPL status, state, acreage, DC tier persona, Opportunity Zone, and DC candidate toggle. All filters round-trip via the URL — share a filtered view with the ⎘ button.

Rankings tab

Ranked table of all scored sites. Switch between the Data Center, Generation, and Manufacturing lenses; the global filters apply here too.

KPI cells

The Datacenter-ready and Hyperscale-ready cells are clickable — they toggle a filter to show only those sites.

Export

The ↓ button exports the current filtered set as a CSV, including all infrastructure distances, scores, and enrichment fields.

Site detail panel

Opens on any marker or table-row click. Shows siting score breakdowns, infrastructure distances, federal documents, ECHO enforcement, and state tax incentive context. The Summary tab shows the AI-generated narrative.