Northern California’s rural communities are surrounded by forests, watersheds, and deep natural wealth—but many also contain long-abandoned industrial properties that pose environmental and health risks. These “brownfields” often sit idle due to real or perceived contamination, preventing new housing, healthcare, recreation, or businesses from taking root.

The North State Rural Brownfields Program, led by the Sierra Institute, is working across 10 rural counties to assess, clean up, and repurpose these underused sites. This effort supports broader goals of economic revitalization, watershed health, and community resilience across the region.

What Is a Brownfield?

A brownfield is a property where redevelopment is complicated by the presence—or potential presence—of hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants. In the North State, brownfields include:

• Abandoned sawmills
• Former industrial yards
• Vacant forestland facilities
• Old gas stations and commercial buildings

These sites may seem forgotten, but they represent opportunities to address public health risks, support community visions, and revitalize the land for productive reuse.

Where We Work

We focus on 10 counties that are rich in natural resources yet face social and economic challenges:
Butte, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, and Trinity.

These counties are home to the forests that supply water to over 27 million Californians and are central to the future of forest and watershed health. Yet communities here experience higher-than-average poverty, unemployment, and public health challenges. Redeveloping brownfields in these areas is a key strategy for long-term resilience and economic recovery.

What We’re Doing

With funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, we are:

• Creating a regional site inventory of brownfields based on public input, historical records, and environmental data
• Conducting Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessments (ESAs) on high-priority sites
• Engaging community members through meetings, interviews, and workshops to shape site reuse plans
• Developing cleanup plans and recommending redevelopment options that benefit underserved rural communities
• Collaborating with partners to carry out technical work and share findings

The project emphasizes reuse planning for housing, health services, wood products manufacturing, or other community needs based on locally defined priorities.

Why It Matters

Revitalizing brownfields is about much more than cleaning up old sites. It’s about building a future that serves the land, people, and communities who depend on it. Through this program, we aim to:

• Improve public health by identifying and addressing contamination risks
• Support economic opportunity by preparing sites for new industries like wood utilization
• Align redevelopment with forest and watershed restoration goals
• Make rural communities more livable with better housing, services, and jobs
• Reduce the risk of wildfire and climate impacts by supporting better land use and resource management

Long-term, these revitalized spaces could help support forest restoration infrastructure and move biomass out of the woods and into use—rather than being left to burn.

Get Involved

Do you know of a vacant or underused property in your community that could be part of this transformation? Are you a local leader, planner, or community member interested in advancing a cleanup or redevelopment vision?

We want to hear from you. Please fill out our brownfields inquiry form here.

Contact Us: brownfields@sierrainstitute.us