Is It Safe to Grow Food in Orange County?
Federal record: HighWe checked the federal record around Orange County — 21,370 documented sites across 8 of the 8 site registers we track, 98 of them high-severity.
The most significant on record: 51 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Orange County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — 21,370 documented sites, most of them brownfields. That's a record of the area's history, not a verdict on any one yard: proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis. Before food beds go in, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with — and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Documented sites nearest the Orange County center
- 006s009w01l001s — Nitrate · ~0.3 km from the county center
- Irvine Valley College — Brownfields · ~0.4 km from the county center
- Gary Seiler — Brownfields · ~0.5 km from the county center
These are the closest documented sites to Orange County's geographic center — a screening reference, not a reading on any specific address. Check your own California parcel to see what's actually near you.
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Read your Orange County parcel
See exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
Three things about your exact spot that zone averages miss:
We read public map data for this spot — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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