&EPA
                   United States
                   Environmental
                   Protection Agency
                   Washington, D.C.  20460
                           Solid Waste
                           and Emergency
                           Response (5101)
      EPA 500-F-98-225
      July 1998
                                 Assessment
Demonstration  Pilot
                                             Omaha,  NE
  Outreach and Special Projects Staff (5101)
                                             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. Since 1995, EPA has funded more than 200 Brownfields Assessment
Demonstration Pilots,  at up to $200,000 each, to support creative two-year explorations and  demonstrations of
brownfields solutions.  The Pilots 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 has selected the City of Omaha for a Brownfields
Pilot. The downtown riverfront has been the location
of heavy industrial activity for more than 100 years.
As these industrial facilities have closed or reduced
the scope of their operations, much of the land along
the riverfront has become underused or abandoned.
Although many of these industries once used the
Missouri River for shipment of raw  materials or
products, these commonly contaminated properties
now effectively cut off the City and citizens of Omaha
from making productive use  of this resource. In
addition, overall population shifts, coupled with the
high level of business relocation out of the inner city
to the western suburbs, have created corridors of
distressed  neighborhoods, boarded-up  industrial
facilities, and vacant sites of demolished structures.

The Pilot is targeting the North 11th Street Industrial
Redevelopment Area which lies within the boundaries
of established Federal and State Enterprise Zones
and along the Missouri River. These Enterprise Zones
encompass Omaha's  greatest  concentrations of
abandoned housing; 23.4% of the residents live in
poverty and 56.6% are unemployed. To date, plans
to revitalize and redevelop these areas have been
somewhat fractured due to a lack of coordination
among various municipal and State agencies, private
interests, and affected neighborhood associations.
                           PILOT SNAPSHOT
                              Omaha, Nebraska
 Date of Announcement:
 July 1998

 Amount: $200,000

 Profile: The City of Omaha is
 targeting the North 11th
 Street Industrial
 Redevelopment Area along
 the Missouri River, which lies
 within the boundaries of
 established Federal and State
 Enterprise Zones.
                           Contacts:

                           City of Omaha
                           (402) 444-5000
Regional Brownfields Team
U.S. EPA-Region 7
(913)551-7786
                                 Visit the EPA Region 7 Brownfields web site at:
                           http://www.epa.gov/region7/specinit/brown/brownfields.htm

                              Forfurtherinformation, 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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OBJECTIVES

The City's primary objective isto assess and re vitalize
underused and abandoned properties along the Missouri
River in the North 11th Street Industrial Redevelopment
Area. With the assistance of a local non-profit the
City plans  to  bring together municipal and State
agencies, local neighborhood associations, business
groups, financial institutions, environmentalists, and
other interested parties to provide ideas into the plans
for environmental management and reuse of these
properties.   The  City  expects to  revitalize these
properties by integrating green space,  recreational,
commercial and industrial uses in a way that supports
the Community's "Back to the River" vision of a
green corridor of public parks along the riverfront.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND ACTIVITIES

Activities planned as part of this Pilot include:

• Performing detailed  Phase  I  and Phase  II
 assessments, as appropriate, on the publically-owned
 City Dock Board property and on at least one or two
 additional brownfields in the North 11th Street Area;

• Developing community outreach and engagement
 activities focused on forming partnerships to address
 the cleanup, redevelopment and reuse ofbrownfields;

• Identifying potential future land uses, appropriate
 environmental actions to support those uses, and
 potential barriers to redevelopment;

• Exploring potential solutions to the redevelopment
 barriers, such as identifying possible sources of
 funding for cleanup and redevelopment.
The cooperative agreement for this Pilot has not yet been
negotiated; therefore, activities described in this fact sheet
are subject to change.
Brownfields Assessment Demonstration Pilot                                                  Omaha, Nebraska
July 1998                                                                           EPA500-F-98-225

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