Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent on environmental cleanup, more than half the yards in a section of Omaha, Nebraska, that once surrounded a lead smelter still contain lead levels high enough to cause elevated blood-lead levels in children, according to tests by the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica.

This contamination is widespread across Omaha’s older urban core, affecting historically Black neighborhoods north of downtown, predominantly Hispanic areas to the south, and more affluent white neighborhoods in midtown. Homes closest to the former lead smelter and other downtown factories tend to have slightly higher lead concentrations.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under its Superfund program, along with the city of Omaha, has been working to remove lead from these yards since the late 1990s. However, the EPA’s cleanup standard for Omaha, set in 2009 and based on health recommendations from 1994, requires soil lead levels to be below 400 parts per million (ppm). An EPA risk model indicates that to protect most children according to newer health guidelines, soil lead levels should be below 100 ppm—equivalent to about 10 grains of rice in a 10-pound bucket of dirt.

Recent testing by Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica found that 1 in 10 remediated homes still exceed this 100 ppm threshold. Moreover, EPA testing from March 2024 suggests that 84% of the Superfund site in Omaha—over 36,000 properties—have areas with lead concentrations above 100 ppm.

Last year, the Trump administration rolled back Biden-era standards, raising the lowest screening level from 100 ppm to 200 ppm, citing an effort to expedite cleanup of the highest-risk areas. In contrast, California cleans up properties to 80 ppm, its screening level for potentially risky soil, though residents with properties exceeding that level often receive safety education rather than physical remediation, according to Seth John, a University of Southern California earth sciences professor.

These findings highlight ongoing concerns about the adequacy of current EPA standards and cleanup efforts in protecting children from lead exposure in East Omaha.

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