More Than Half the Homes in East Omaha Have Unsafe Lead Levels. That Doesn’t Mean the EPA Will Clean Them Up.
ProPublica · LC · trust 58/100
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Flatwater Free Press . Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week.
Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent on environmental cleanup, more than half the yards in a section of Omaha, Nebraska, that used to surround a lead smelter still have enough contamination to cause high blood-lead levels in kids, according to tests by the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica.
The findings were consistent across the city’s older urban core — in the historically Black neighborhoods north of downtown, the predominantly Hispanic areas to the south and the more white and affluent areas in midtown. However, homes closest to where a lead smelter and other downtown factories operated tended to have slightly higher concentrations than those farther out.
As part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, the federal government and the city of Omaha have been attempting to remove lead from Omaha’s yards since the late 1990s.
The EPA’s cleanup standard for Omaha was set in 2009 and is based on health recommendations from 1994. Since then, research has shown that lower exposures can cause IQ loss in kids and heart attacks in adults. Twice in the last 15 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowered what it considers a high blood-lead level. An EPA risk model found that to protect most kids according to those new health guidelines, soil levels would have to be below 100 parts per million — about 10 grains of rice in a 10-pound bucket of dirt.
The Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica tested 388 homes in the Omaha Superfund site and found that 208 had levels over 100 parts per million.
But the EPA has never required that level of cleanup in Omaha or as a national remediation standard. Current EPA policy for the Omaha cleanup site directs contractors to dig up and replace yards if tests show they contain more than 400 parts per million of lead — about a marble’s worth of the metal dispersed across a 10-gallon bucket of dirt. Last week, the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica reported that 1 in 10 of the homes we tested that were remediated still has a lead concentration over that threshold .
The risk worries Natalie Thorpe, whose 3-year-old daughter tested high for lead as a baby. When the history and English teacher bought a house in Omaha, she knew about the Superfund site, but friends assured her the EPA had taken care of any problems with the dirt. Instead, her yard has enough lead to be risky but not enough to qualify for government cleanup.
“It feels a little bit like being a sitting duck,” Thorpe said.
EPA spokesperson Kellen Ashford said removing lead in soil is only one factor in protecting communities. Because no level of lead in the body is safe and it would be impossible to remove all lead from a site, the agency works with local health officials to protect the community from lead risks in other ways, he said.
Those include establishing the Omaha Lead Registry , a website where people can search for the highest lead level and remediation status of any property in the site. The EPA also funds the Douglas County Health Department’s lead poisoning prevention program , which performs home visits when a child tests high for exposure to the toxic metal.
Cleanup, combined with these other layers of protection, has led to a dramatic decline in elevated blood-lead levels in Omaha, Ashford said. (While the percentage of kids testing high for lead has dropped significantly, as it has nationally, kids in the Omaha site still test high for lead at rates above the national average .)
We published a guide to inform the public about what they should know about lead contamination in Omaha. \n"},{"heading":"April 15, 2026","body":" We reported that despite Omaha being home to the largest residential lead Superfund site in the country, most kids living there aren\u2019t tested for the toxic metal. \n"},{"heading":"Oct. 20, 2025","body":" The Trump administration issued guidance tripling the amount of lead that has to be in soil to warrant potential cleanup. Before that, the EPA had been discussing expanding the Omaha cleanup , which could have included nearly 27,000 properties. \n"},{"heading":"August 2025","body":" The Flatwater Free Press in partnership with ProPublica began testing Omaha yards for lead to find out how effective the cleanup has been . \n"},{"heading":"December 2015","body":" The EPA finished the cleanup of more than 13,000 residential properties and passed the remaining work to the city of Omaha. \n"},{"heading":"March 1999","body":" The Environmental Protection Agency began testing soil from Omaha yards after concerns about elevated blood lead levels in children. The contamination was eventually tied to a smelter and factories that spewed lead dust for over a century. \n"}]}} Series Timeline April 16, 2026 We published a guide to inform the public about what they should know about lead contamination in Omaha.
We reported that despite Omaha being home to the largest residential lead Superfund site in the country, most kids living there aren’t tested for the toxic metal.
The Trump administration issued guidance tripling the amount of lead that has to be in soil to warrant potential cleanup. Before that, the EPA had been discussing expanding the Omaha cleanup , which could have included nearly 27,000 properties.
The Flatwater Free Press in partnership with ProPublica began testing Omaha yards for lead to find out how effective the cleanup has been .
The EPA finished the cleanup of more than 13,000 residential properties and passed the remaining work to the city of Omaha.
The Environmental Protection Agency began testing soil from Omaha yards after concerns about elevated blood lead levels in children. The contamination was eventually tied to a smelter and factories that spewed lead dust for over a century.
Work on lead has historically been…
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