Mention the name “Diamond Shamrock” to locals in the Cleveland area and you’re likely to get an immediate, negative reaction. People inevitably think about the company’s contentious past and the legacy it left behind when it ceased operations more than 25 years ago: a massive piece of prime lakefront property, permanently fenced off due to unquantified chemical contamination.

Of course, as is often the case with brownfields, public perception is based more on misinformation and fear than on facts. What follows is an account of the strategy employed to resolve decades of litigation and bring new possibilities for housing and recreation to a property that had tremendous potential, but had long since been written off as a lost cause. ...

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