TIERRA Project
The main goal of our TIERRA Project is to assess the potential for brownfield remediation and redevelopment into safe, green, and clean spaces in the broader South Los Angeles region.
What’s in the TIERRA Toolkit?
When you walk through your neighborhood, have you ever stumbled upon a vacant lot filled with dirt, shrubs, and litter? Maybe there was an abandoned building there? Perhaps it was surrounded by a chain-link fence with warning signs? It's likely you've spotted a brownfield.
While they may appear empty or forgotten, brownfields are anything but harmless.
Brownfields are not just a land use issue—they are a matter of environmental and racial justice. These contaminated sites pose significant health, economic, and social risks to surrounding communities. Residents face disproportionately high rates of cancer, fertility issues, and cognitive diseases, making brownfields an urgent public health threat. They are also a toxic reminder of the harmful legacy of racist and discriminatory planning and development practices.
In Los Angeles, Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities have been overexposed and underprotected from legacy soil contamination for decades. These communities have long been surrounded by polluting industries and infrastructure, resulting in alarming levels of pollution and soil contamination.
But contaminated land can be remediated, restored, and reused.
Healing and restoring our land is crucial for a healthier future for generations to come. To prevent history from repeating itself, we must break the cycle of environmental harm and actively engage in solutions that repair and restore our communal land and health.
TIERRA Community Toolkit
Our toolkit is a resource for community residents, advocates, and decision makers to learn about brownfields and collectively take action to clean up and transform contaminated sites in their community.
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A piece of land where a past use may have contaminated the soil and water.
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The use of either naturally occurring or deliberately introduced microorganisms or other forms of life to consume, stabilize, or degrade environmental pollutants in order to clean up a polluted site.
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Contaminated land, once a symbol of neglect, can be remediated, restored, and repurposed into affordable housing, community centers, parks, and other vital spaces that directly serve impacted communities and improve community health. Beyond revitalizing neighborhoods, these efforts strengthen climate resilience by improving soil, air, and water quality. Healthy soils retain water, sequester carbon, degrade potential pollutants, and support biodiversity, helping to mitigate the effects of droughts, floods, and extreme heat events (1).
(1) Hanna Linden (she/her) | CA4SH Secretariat. (2024a, August 22). Op-ed: Roots of resilience: Soil health and climate change?. Coalition of Action for Soil Health. https://www.coalitionforsoilhealth.org/news/op-ed-roots-of-resilience-soil-health-and-climate-change
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Advance safer and greener methods for soil remediation, such as bioremediation and other health-protective strategies for cleanup.
Ensure that communities lead the redevelopment process and are engaged early on.
Advocate for stronger cleanup standards and redevelopment regulations that protect community health and facilitate an equitable brownfield redevelopment process.
Establish a dedicated long-term funding stream for brownfield remediation and redevelopment at the federal, state, and city levels.
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Brownfields 101 Webinar Series
This 2-part webinar series focuses on the issue of contaminated soil and how to transform it equitably into healthy, community-serving spaces.
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Build it.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
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Grow it.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.