For greater than a century, a smelting plant in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, spewed lead-laced smoke throughout the town. Because the poisonous metallic drifted towards the bottom, roughly 400 million kilos of it — almost the burden of Chicago’s Willis Tower — settled into the soil and our bodies of numerous Omahans. Since 1999, the U.S. Environmental Safety Company and the town of Omaha have spent tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} to wash it up.
Flatwater Free Press is partnering with ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative newsroom, to learn the way efficient they’ve been and see what questions are nonetheless on the market about one of many largest residential environmental cleanups in America.
Signal as much as have your soil examined for lead by filling out our kind. Should you dwell in one of many affected areas listed under, a member of our group might come gather a soil pattern out of your yard. As soon as it’s examined, we are going to inform you of your outcomes. (You might choose out of receiving the check outcomes should you desire.)
In case you have any questions, please contact Flatwater Free Press reporter Chris Bowling at [email protected] or 402-302-0066, Ext. 5. We invite you to share this manner together with your neighbors and group to allow them to signal as much as have their soil examined for lead, too.
Omaha Lead Superfund Web site Map
This map reveals the Omaha Lead Superfund Web site. Flatwater Free Press is keen on testing properties throughout the web site in addition to these in surrounding areas like Bellevue; neighborhoods east of 72nd Road; Carter Lake, Iowa; and Council Bluffs, Iowa. We are going to prioritize accumulating soil from inside these neighborhoods.
Click on or faucet the map to enlarge.
