AI + Brownfields: Can It Accelerate Redevelopment in Florida?

For decades, environmental professionals in Florida have worked diligently to remediate contaminated sites and return them to productive use. A vast network of practitioners, principals, regulators, legislators, government staff, academics, and community stakeholders has made tremendous progress.

But as challenges grow more complex and expectations for speed, transparency, and cost control increase, it’s time to ask a bigger question: How can we use advancements in technology – AI in particular – to navigate brownfields remediation?

AI’s Potential in Analyzing Brownfields Data

Florida has an extraordinary but underutilized asset waiting to be mined – tens of thousands of environmental reports, agency comment letters, cleanup determinations, risk assessments, and regulatory decisions dating back to the 1980s. Collectively, these documents tell the story of how contaminants behave in Florida soils and aquifers, how regulators evaluate risk, what remediation strategies have been approved and which of those succeed.

Until now, that knowledge has largely remained locked in institutional memory (which is lost over time) and physical and virtual filing cabinets (with each project file unaware of, and unconnected to, its neighbor). Artificial intelligence seems poised to change that.

AI tools now make it possible to analyze massive datasets – across time, geography, contaminant type, and regulatory context – to identify patterns that were previously invisible. These tools can help us better understand contaminant fate and transport, design more defensible background studies, anticipate regulatory expectations earlier, reduce unnecessary investigation and remediation costs, improve consistency across projects and agencies, democratize access to prior redevelopment experience, and accelerate safe, productive reuse of contaminated properties.

New Discussion Series

Florida is well-positioned to lead the effort to use AI for brownfields remediation. This state has robust public datasets, a mature brownfields program, and decades of site-specific experience. What we need now is collaboration across government, consulting, development, legal, and academic communities to explore how AI can be used responsibly to support remediation and redevelopment.

For this reason, we are excited to announce a discussion series focused on applying AI to remediation projects generally and brownfields redevelopment specifically. We’ll start with team calls but progress to in-person meetings across the state. We hope you’ll consider joining this important conversation.