Lead Contamination Persists in Omaha Yards Despite EPA Cleanup Efforts
Decades after the last plume of lead-laced smoke rose from a smelting plant in Omaha, Nebraska, the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica found lead in concentrations that pose a threat to people’s health in soil throughout east Omaha. The investigation, which began more than two years ago, has led residents to contact the city and federal government, but the responses they’ve received have been inconsistent.
Coverage Comparison
The investigation by the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica focused on the aftermath of the American Smelting and Refining Company’s closure in the 1990s, which prompted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to declare a 27-square-mile area a hazardous waste zone, known as a Superfund site. Since then, the EPA and the city have spent decades cleaning up residential properties in east Omaha after a century of pollution from a lead smelter and other factories downtown.
The news organizations tested soil from 620 properties, including 150 that the EPA said had been cleaned up. They found that 1 in 10 yards marked as remediated still had enough lead to qualify for cleanup under the original guidelines. Nearly all previously remediated homes that tested high had a neighbor whose yard tested high but was never cleaned up.
Key Claims
- The EPA has spent $273 million digging up and backfilling nearly 14,000 yards across east Omaha to address contamination left from the smelter and other factories downtown.
- The EPA had set a lead level that it uses to determine which properties to clean up, and the news organizations’ tests found these residents’ yards were over the limit.
- The city said that according to EPA rules, it can’t rely on testing by the newsrooms or any other groups to drive testing and cleanup decisions.
Peter Olson thought he was one of the lucky ones, but a soil test conducted in September showed he had too much of the toxic metal in his yard. When his wife contacted the EPA, Olson hoped a federal employee would offer another test and cleanup.
In the last 10 months, residents in neighborhoods across Omaha have contacted the city and federal government after tests by the news organizations showed they had enough of the toxic metal in their yards for the dirt to be dug up and replaced under EPA rules. Three of them received new testing and were promised additional cleanup, while others were denied a new cleanup or told the news organizations they never heard back.
One resident said the city tested her yard, found it exceeded the EPA’s lead contamination level and sent her a letter saying cleanup was necessary. Months later the city backtracked, saying she did not qualify because she lived outside the primary cleanup zone. Another said she called 14 times before the city told her it would not retest because she hadn’t built or demolished anything in her yard since the EPA replaced the soil in 2012.
The investigation also found that nearly a quarter of the properties tested in east Omaha could qualify for further study under new guidance released by the Trump administration. The new guidance, issued in October 2025, tripled the amount of lead that has to be in soil to warrant cleanup, potentially leaving more properties without action.
Throughout their reporting, the news organizations heard from hundreds of Omaha residents who said they didn’t know about the city’s lead history. Some said they believed that because the EPA had already cleaned up thousands of properties, there was nothing to worry about. The investigation aimed to reach people in every neighborhood in and around the Superfund site, offering free soil testing through partnerships with local libraries, community health centers, and other local media. The reporting was made available in Spanish, as roughly 10% of residents living within the Superfund site are Spanish-speaking.