Brownfields and Environmental Justice Timeline 

The EPA Brownfields Program has a rich history rooted in environmental justice. 

The Brownfields Program and the environmental justice movement 

have evolved over a similar timeline, fueling one another and helping to build 

strong communities.

1982	•	 Residents of Warren County, NC protest construction of a hazardous waste 

landfill in the predominantly African-American community, bringing environmental 

justice issues into the national spotlight

1987	•	 The United Church of Christ publishes Toxic Waste and Race in the United States

1991	• The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit is held

	 •	 Cuyahoga County Community College Environmental Justice Grant

1993 	•	 Cuyahoga County Planning Commission receives first EPA Brownfields Pilot

1994 	• Executive Order 12898 requires that each federal agency make achieving 

environmental justice part of its mission

1995 	• EPA awards additional Brownfields Pilots to 22 communities 

• EPA and NEJAC convene public dialogues to provide stakeholders an 

opportunity to express concerns related to brownfields and public health

1996	• NEJAC publishes Environmental Justice, Urban Revitalization, and Brownfields: 

The Search for Authentic Signs of Hope highlighting recommendations to EPA 

raised through the public dialogues on how to develop the Brownfields Program

1997 	• The Puyallup and Navajo Nation become the first Tribes to receive 

Brownfields funding

1998 	• EPA awards first Job Training Pilots

• First 16 Brownfields Showcase Communities are designated, providing 

resources and support from more than 15 federal agencies to address local 

revitalization issues

1999 	• EPA develops Civil Rights Act Title VI Case Studies report

2002 	• “Brownfields Law” signed; statute includes requirements to address 

environmental justice; nonprofit organizations are eligible to receive funding

2005 	•	 EPA brings environmental justice and community representatives together to 

develop the All Appropriate Inquiry Final Rule

• EPA awards Job Training grants to Mississippi DEQ and Southern University to 

recruit and train residents in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina

	 • Brownfields Program begins providing Targeted Brownfields Assessment funding 

to EPA’s Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) grantees

2006	•	 NEJAC publishes Unintended Impacts of Redevelopment and Revitalization 

Efforts in Five Environmental Justice Communities highlighting concerns of 

gentrification and displacement in brownfield communities

2007	• Brownfields Program contributes to EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency 

Response Environmental Justice Action Plan

• EPA awards first round of Training, Research, and Technical Assistance grants 

focused on environmental justice issues 

• EPA convenes nonprofit cleanup roundtables to assist nonprofit organizations in 

building capacity to address environmental issues

2009 • To date, 78 Tribes and 90 nonprofit organizations have received 

Brownfields funding

Addressing 

Environmental 

Justice in EPA 

Brownfields 

Communities

EPA-560-F-09-518

November 2009

www.epa.gov/brownfields

Solid Waste

and Emergency

Response (5105T)

Future Opportunities to Measure and Promote 

Environmental Justice

The data presented in this brochure affirm efforts by EPA’s Brownfields 

Program to serve communities most in need. However, additional data and 

analysis are needed to gain a clearer understanding of how the demographic 

and socioeconomic composition of communities has evolved as a result of 

Brownfields funding. Ultimately, this analysis is a first step in determining if the 

program is serving low-income and minority communities, as it was designed to 

do. EPA hopes to conduct future analyses of communities that have received EPA 

funding to correlate 2000 census data with 2010 census data. This information 

collection will help OBLR determine ways to enhance the program to better serve 

the American public.

EPA Cleanups in My Community:

Mapping and listing tool that shows sites where pollution is being 

or has been cleaned up:

iaspub.epa.gov/Cleanups/

EPA Contact:

Joseph Bruss

Environmental Justice Coordinator

Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization

(202) 566-2772

Brownfields and Environmental Justice: 

A Demographic Analysis of Brownfields 

Communities

Redevelopment for 

Affordable Housing

Using EPA funding to help provide 

affordable housing helps to prevent 

displacement of current residents. The 

Redevelopment Agency of the City 

of Oakland, California used an EPA 

Brownfields Cleanup grant to help turn a 

former commercial and industrial property 

into 80 units of affordable housing for local 

residents. The complex integrates green 

building design and eco-friendly materials.
“Brownfields Law” Aims to Serve Communities in Need

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Brownfields Program 

provides funding to help communities revitalize their contaminated lands. 

The Program’s grants and technical assistance give communities, states, 

tribes, and other stakeholders the resources they need to prevent, assess, 

safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. The Brownfields Program 

is authorized under the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields 

Revitalization Act, which amended CERCLA. The “Brownfields Law” is one 

of the few environmental statutes, if not the only, that specifically addresses 

environmental justice in plain terms. The law requires that during the grant 

evaluation process, EPA take into consideration “the extent to which the 

grant would facilitate the identification and reduction of threats to the health 

or welfare of children, pregnant women, minority or low-income communities, 

or other sensitive populations.” Additionally, EPA must consider “the extent to 

which a community that has an inability to draw on other sources of funding 

for environmental remediation and subsequent redevelopment of the area 

in which a brownfield site is located because of the small population or low 

income of the community.”

Census Block Groups with EPA-funded 

Brownfields Properties (2000) Census Block Groups Nationwide (2000)

Attribute Average Average

Poverty Rate Percentage 20.1% 12.4%

Minority Population Percentage 37.9% 30.9%

Vacant Residential Unit Percentage 11.5% 9.0%

Per Capita Income $16,693 $21,587

Table 1: EPA grants are awarded to communities with higher poverty rates,

minority populations, and vacancies and lower incomes than the national average.

1 For an additional description of Census data, and to see the original data in its entirety, please visit 

www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html

2 For a definition of Census Block Group, please visit www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/doc/sf1.pdf, page A-8

Demographic Analysis of EPA Brownfields Communities

Job Training Programs Train Residents 

of Brownfield Communities

The Brownfields Job Training Program seeks to 

ensure that the economic benefits derived from 

brownfields redevelopment remains with affected 

residents. The Absentee Shawnee Tribe successfully 

developed a brownfields job training program. More 

than 100 students have learned the skills necessary 

to obtain employment in local brownfield assessment 

and cleanup projects and many have been placed in 

remediation jobs cleaning up tribal land.

The Unintended Impacts of Brownfields Revitalization

In 2006, EPA, in coordination with the National Environmental Justice 

Advisory Council (NEJAC) Waste and Facility Siting Subcommittee, 

published a report entitled Unintended Impacts of Redevelopment and 

Revitalization Efforts in Five Environmental Justice Communities. This report 

examined concerns that EPA’s Brownfields Program may unintentionally 

exacerbate historical gentrification and displacement of low-income and 

minority communities through the cleanup of brownfields. This report and 

the dialogue it created was important because it raised new concerns and 

brought this issue to light. It led EPA to more carefully consider unintended 

impacts of redevelopment during its evaluation of cleanup grant proposals 

and to be more conscientious of potential unintended impacts throughout the 

brownfields revitalization process.

Measuring Success

Many communities lack the resources needed to initiate brownfields cleanup 

and redevelopment projects, so EPA funding helps build project momentum 

where communities can leverage additional funding and resources to 

revitalize their brownfields. A unique aspect of the Brownfields Program is that 

it empowers local communities to address economic, environmental, public 

health, and social issues associated with brownfields from a cross-disciplinary 

approach. Serving low-income and minority communities is done in part by 

providing funding to underserved communities. In order to determine if EPA 

Brownfields grants have been awarded to the intended communities, OBLR 

compared four demographic attributes of Brownfields grant communities to 

those of the national average (see table 1).1

 This analysis illustrates and 

confirms that EPA Brownfields grants go to the types of communities the 

program was originally designed to help. Demographic data from the 2000 

U.S. Census, the most recent complete Census data available, was used 

in this analysis. EPA used the LandView tool to obtain Census Block Group 

data2

 based on geographic information in the EPA ACRES database for more 

than 3,000 properties that were reported by grantees to have benefitted from 

EPA Brownfields funding as of January 2008, including assessment, 

cleanup, and revolving loan fund grants, as well as targeted brownfields 

assessment resources.

During both the evaluation of grant proposals and when working with 

communities throughout their cooperative agreements, EPA helps to 

educate staff and communities on the importance of integrating principles of 

equitable development into the cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields. 

Some of these principles include: the creation of affordable housing, 

working with minority- and women-owned businesses and environmental 

contracting firms, creating first source hiring ordinances, ensuring jobs 

with living wages, partnering with local land trusts, creating commercial 

linkage strategies, redeveloping brownfields into nonprofit purposes such 

as clinics and parks, and developing resident shareholding models. These 

principles help to ensure that low- and moderate-income families are 

not displaced following redevelopment and that communities historically 

plagued with blighted properties and environmental contamination reap the 

benefits of environmental cleanup. With technical assistance from EPA, 

communities across the country are beginning to realize that incorporating 

principles of equitable development provides a more socially, economic, 

and environmentally sustainable future for the community while oftentimes 

preserving critical aspects of American heritage and culturally diverse 

neighborhoods.

“In communities that are under economic stress, particularly low-income 

areas that have experienced long periods of disinvestment and decay, 

successful revitalization takes more than a focus on individual properties. 

Revitalization requires a hard look at the surrounding area in order to establish 

a comprehensive area-wide plan that identifies reuses that both meet the needs 

of the local community and that incorporate the elements of public improvements 

and infrastructure that are necessary to attract private investment.”

—Mathy Stanislaus

Assistant Administrator 

for Solid Waste and Emergency Response