Site Mitigation & Restoration Program

We protect and maintain California’s land and places
by setting strict standards for land restoration and cleanup

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Last Updated: January 2, 2025

From the Desk of Maryam Tasnif-Abbasi, DTSC’s Brownfield Development Manager: Reflecting on 2024

As we step into 2025, I want to take a moment to reflect on the remarkable progress made by the Office of Brownfields in 2024. It was a year defined by dedication, collaboration, and innovation—a year where we transformed brownfields into spaces of opportunity and community renewal.

Highlights from 2024:

1. Funding Progress: Awarded nearly $45 million in Equitable Community Revitalization Grant (ECRG) funding to support transformative projects across California, including amendments tailored to help grantees meet their goals.
2. Community Impact: Supported over 80 ECRG grantees in assessing and cleaning up brownfields, paving the way for affordable housing, parks, and local businesses.
3. Engagement: Partnered with more than 100 California communities to ensure local voices and priorities led our revitalization efforts.
4. Collaboration: Worked with CCLR and the U.S. EPA to host the California Land Recycling Conference, which welcomed over 300 attendees and strengthened our shared commitment to sustainable development.
5. Equity in Action: Advanced the Community Considerate Cleanups initiative, embedding environmental justice principles into our processes and ensuring impacted communities were heard and served.
6. Sustainability: Streamlined voluntary agreement processes and enhanced project performance, driving long-term success for communities and ecosystems alike.

These achievements were possible thanks to the hard work and passion of our incredible team. Their efforts are ensuring a brighter, healthier future for California’s neighborhoods.

Looking Ahead to 2025 As we move forward, I’m inspired by Apple’s iconic “Think Different” campaign. It challenges us to embrace bold ideas, push boundaries, and approach challenges with creativity and determination—values that align perfectly with our mission. In 2025, we’ll continue to transform polluted spaces into opportunities for equity, growth, and community strength.

In 2025, we will use Community Considerate Cleanups, to take Pollution to Possibility.

For the Latest Brownfield News Archives, click the Archived Brownfields News box below.

See Archived Brownfields News

Office of Brownfields Mission

Creating an innovative brownfield infrastructure within DTSC that fosters effective, consistent and safe science-based decision making throughout the state and supporting entities who proactively seek regulatory oversight to reduce environmental uncertainties and reuse land in a safe and protective manner.

Office of Brownfields Vision

A California where DTSC’s tools, resources and relationships have created a safer environment for all our communities by increasing the capacity of nonprofits, public entities, Tribes and private organizations to recycle land, create vibrant community spaces and provide equal access to environmental justice for all.

Brownfields

Among other types of properties, Site Mitigation and Restoration Program staff provides regulatory oversight for the evaluation and cleanup of brownfields. Brownfields are properties that are contaminated, or thought to be contaminated, and are underutilized due to perceived remediation cost and liability concerns. Many of these properties are in the urban core, near transit and often in underserved communities with housing and economic development needs. Cleaning up brownfield properties not only eliminates the threat to residents and neighborhoods from hazardous substances, it frees this abandoned or underutilized land for productive reuse. Redevelopment of brownfields also takes development pressures off previously undeveloped property, thereby preserving open space and agricultural land.

The State of California and DTSC realize the need for and importance of brownfield redevelopment. To support this priority, DTSC has created programs and administrative vehicles to formalize and streamline the engagement and oversight process. DTSC has several types of voluntary agreements that can be used to provide regulatory oversight for brownfields and other types of properties as well. Note that the decision-making process and environmental assessment and/or cleanup steps under voluntary agreements and for enforcement actions both follow all applicable regulatory requirements and demand the same rigor and scientific scrutiny to ensure the protection of human health and the environment. Both voluntary agreements and enforcement actions are subject to the same public participation process, and DTSC’s public participation process will vary based on the level of community interest in the project or property.

The oversight and engagement process is shown graphically in the flowchart below and accessed via the links in this Quick Reference Guide:

DTSC’s Voluntary Agreements - Assessment & Cleanup Process Diagram

Download PDF version of this diagram.

This document is intended to be guidance only and it does not supersede or implement laws or regulations. The information in this advisory is intended solely as guidance and as educational reference material and should not be considered enforceable or regulatory in nature.