Brownfield Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)

California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA), Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), and Regional Water Quality Control Boards (RWQCB) recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement (.pdf format)  regarding the regulatory oversight of brownfields in California. This effort was in response to the Secretary's July 20, 2004 Brownfields Initiative memo (.pdf format).

The purpose of the MOA is to improve coordination between DTSC, SWRCB, and RWQCB and their oversight of cleanup activities at brownfield sites. The MOA is designed to accomplish the following objectives:

1. It limits oversight to only one of the agencies
2. It establishes procedures and guidelines for identifying the lead agency
3. It calls for a single, uniform site assessment procedure to be used by both
4. It requires all cleanups to address the requirements of both agencies
5. It defines the roles of support agencies, and procedures for transferring sites to the other when appropriate
6. It requires both agencies to provide ample opportunity for public involvement in their cleanup decisions
7. It commits both agencies to review timeframes
8. It commits both agencies to coordination and communication on brownfield sites

New Procedures for Requesting Oversight

The most significant change that the MOA represents is that for brownfield sites, anyone requesting oversight from DTSC or a Regional Board must submit an application to initiate the process to assign the appropriate oversight agency. The following documents, all attachments to the MOA, are available for your use:

• Request for Oversight of a Brownfield Site PDF | MS Word
• Site Information Needed for Oversight Agency Selection

When you have prepared a request, you may submit it to either the DTSC or Regional Board office in your geographic area. The Brownfields Coordinators in those offices will contact the other agency and reply with the name and contact information for the selected oversight agency.

Uniform Site Assessment Tools

The Uniform Site Assessment Tools were jointly developed to provide a common set of criteria to assist DTSC and the RWQCBs in the site assessment process. This should result in a common approach to site assessment in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations that responsible parties, consultants, regulators, and the general public can use as a basis for performing and reviewing site assessments, regardless of the particular oversight Agency.

• Uniform Site Assessment Tools Document (PDF)
• Factsheet on the Uniform Site Assessment Tools (PDF)

MOA Statistics

DTSC and the Regional Boards are committed to ensuring that MOA decisions are made in a timely fashion. DTSC and the Regional Boards have been maintaining a database to track basic information about each oversight request. Our goal is to make much of that information directly available on this site. We are in the process of working out those logistics. Until then, we’ve posted some very basic statistics about the operation of the MOA at the link below. We will update this information often.

• MOA General Statistics (PDF)
• MOA Determinations by Agency (PDF)
• MOA Application Details (PDF)

For More Information

For more information, please contact the Brownfields Managers or Brownfields Coordinators in your area. Their names and contact information can be found at the link below:

• Brownfields Contacts

Thank you for your continued interest in and support of Cal/EPA’s efforts to put brownfields back into productive use to protect and preserve California’s environment as well as to be returned to our tax rolls as economic assets.