Recent research on environmental justice shifts the focus from explanations for disproportionate siting of environmental hazards to what can be done to improve environmental justice outcomes; this work suggests that remediating environmental hazards can reduce environmental injustice and improve environmental outcomes for both minority and majority community members. Therefore, the next question is how we can increase the rate of remediation, especially in minority communities. It is commonly suggested that a key factor in whether environmental hazards are remediated is community engagement. Yet, scholars don’t have much evidence about which hazardous sites tend to be prioritized for remediation, which sites engage the community more actively in the remediation process, and in what ways community residents engage with the cleanup process.  

In a preliminary analysis on cleaning up brownfield sites in Los Angeles County, California (Campbell, Kim, & Eckerd, 2016), we found that community residents are involved in the remediation process only in the latter stages of brownfield cleanup, and that community characteristics may matter less than the salience of the site itself. This study focuses on a qualitative in-depth examination of community involvement in cleaning up brownfield sites in the same area. Using the California EnviroStor data site, we selected 15 brownfield sites and acquired community involvement documents for the sites from a regional agency in Los Angeles County. By analyzing the documents, we aim to gain insight into the process of community involvement, the types of community involvement activities, and the intensity of community involvement. We expect to improve our understanding of under what conditions meaningful community involvement occurs.