United States
                      Environmental
                      Protection Agency
                      Washington, D.C. 20460
 Solid Waste
 and Emergency
 Response (5105)
EPA 500-F-01-006
June 2001
www.epa.gov/brownfields/
    &EPA    Brownfields  Assessment
                      Demonstration  Pilot
                                                                Columbia, MS
 Outreach and Special Projects Staff (5105)
                   Quick Reference Fact Sheet
EPA's Brownfields Economic Redevelopment  Initiative is designed to empower states, communities, and other
stakeholders in economic redevelopment to work together in a timely manner to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and
sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield is a site, or portion thereof, that has actual or perceived contamination and
an active potential for redevelopment or reuse. EPA is funding: assessment demonstration pilot programs (each funded
up to $200,000 over two years), to assess brownfields sites and to test cleanup and redevelopment models; job training
pilot programs (each funded up to $200,000 over two years), to provide training for residents of communities affected
by brownfields to facilitate cleanup of brownfields sites and prepare trainees for future employment in the environmental
field; and, cleanup revolving loan fund programs (each funded up to $500,000 over five years) to capitalize loan funds
to make loans for the environmental cleanup of brownfields. These pilot programs are intended to provide EPA, states,
tribes, municipalities, and communities with useful information and strategies as they continue to seek new methods
to promote a unified approach to site assessment, environmental cleanup,  and redevelopment.
BACKGROUND
EPA selected the City of Columbia for a Brownfields
Pilot. Columbia (population 6,815) is located in south-
central Mississippi near the Louisiana border.  The
city has identified 14 potential brownfield properties
that are barriers to the city's future growth. These
underused and contaminated properties are located
within the Columbia Brownfields District  Area
(CBDA), which includes industrial and commercial
sites with unknown levels of contamination, including
an abandoned scrap yard, a machine shop, and a
former battery recycling business.  The area is also
home to a residential neighborhood known as Webb
Corner. While Columbia's population consists of 31
percent minority, Webb Corner has a minority rate of
87 percent, a poverty rate of 67.7 percent, and an
unemployment rate of 58 percent.

Population decline, a lack of commercially viable
property, and the migration of potential workers to
better jobs in a neighboring city have  hindered
Columbia's  economic growth.  To address  these
issues, the city formed the  Columbia Brownfields
District Redevelopment Partnership. The Partnership
is working closely with community, financial, and
business leaders; local activist and environmental
PILOT SNAPSHOT
   Columbia, Mississippi
  Date of Award:
  September 1998

  Amount: $200,000

  Profile: The Pilot targets
  threesiteswithin the Columbia
  Brownfields District Area for
  assessment, cleanup, and
  redevelopment.
Contacts:
City of Columbia
Office of the Mayor
(601)736-8201
  U.S. EPA-Region 4
  (404)562-8661
     Visit the EPA Region 4 Brownfields web site at:
     http://www.epa.gov/region4/waste/bf/bf.htm

   For further information, including specific Pilot contacts,
 additional Pilot information, brownfields news and events, and
 publications and links, visit the EPA Brownfields web site at:
         http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/

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justice advocacy groups; and federal and state agencies
to resolve  some  of these obstacles  and promote
Columbia'srevitalization and redevelopment.

OBJECTIVES
The Columbia Brownfields District Redevelopment
Partnership seeks to improve the economic and
environmental quality of life of its citizens. The city
plans to use the Pilot to help achieve this mission. The
city's brownfields initiative places a great deal of
importance on actively including all interestedparties
in the assessment,  cleanup, and redevelopment
process.  The Pilot will facilitate this by conducting
community outreach activities, including sponsoring
information-sharing forums in neighborhoods adjacent
to targeted sites.   At these forums,  community
members can discuss plans for nearby sites and voice
their concerns. The relationships formed throughout
this process will  help ensure that the  Partnership
reaches redevelopment decisions that are beneficial
to the low-income and minority residents of Columbia,
whose neighborhoods border many of the brownfields
sites. The Pilot will also conduct site assessments at
the three targeted properties.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND ACTIVITIES
The Pilot has:
• Identifiedand inventoried 14potentially contaminated
 sites; and
• Targeted three sites for further investigation.
The Pilot is:
• Conducting site assessments on selected sites;
• Conducting  public forums and  other  outreach
 activities to encourage continued community
 involvement with regard to the targeted brownfields;
 and
• Developing financial cleanup cost estimates for the
 target sites.
 Brownfields Assessment Demonstration Pilot
 June 2001
                              Columbia, Mississippi
                                EPA 500-F-01-006

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