By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis – The National Brownfields Conference wrapped up Wednesday after three days in St. Louis.
Brownfields are usually old, contaminated industrial sites targeted for cleanup and re-use.
People at the conference represented all aspects of those efforts, from developers and demolition experts to lawyers and government agencies.
Enrico Di Nino is with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. He says cleaning up brownfields is a relatively new trend in Canada.
"We can see that the U.S. is ahead of Canada in many respects with regards to brownfields and brownfields redevelopment, and like everything else, we want to learn and exchange ideas with each other on how to best tackle these problems," Di Nino said.
Di Nino says he was surprised by the number of people interested in redevelopment work.
Conference organizers say more than 4,000 people attended.