Report of the Board of Park Commissioners for the Year Ending December 31st, 1892

Report of the Board of Park Commissioners for the Year Ending December 31st, 1892

Lead refinery contamination in public park

This is a report from Omaha’s Board of Park Commissioners from 1892, which was long before lead was widely recognized as being a major contaminant in Omaha. When talking about Jefferson Square Park, the report notes, “Many of the shrubs and trees in this square will have to be replaced and only those planted which can withstand the noxious gases from the smelting works, which to some varieties is singularly fatal, denuding them altogether of foliage when the wind comes from the south-east.” Though these toxic gases associated with lead smelting in Omaha obviously caused concern in that they were killing trees in a nearby park, because the USEPA was not formed until 1970, there were not really any guidelines or research on the dangers of lead and the extent to which Omaha was contaminated. This park is a little over a mile away from where the Asarco site was located, so people most likely assumed that the effects of toxins were observed in this park just because of its proximity to the primary lead refinery in Omaha without realizing the extent to which the entire Omaha downtown area, including people’s homes were contaminated.

According to a book published by Omaha Publics Schools as part of their Making Invisible Histories Visible initiative, Jefferson Square Park was a park located at the intersection of 16th Street and Chicago Street in downtown Omaha, pretty close to Creighton University. It was Omaha's oldest park. Until the 1960s, Jefferson Square was a Native American community, but in the 1960s it was torn down to be redeveloped into a parking lot near the Capitol District's hotels and restuarants. A 1969 Omaha World Herald article entitled "Bulldozers Move, Bums Move Out of Park" described Jefferson Square Park as a deteriorated, violent place and referred to the Native Americans living there as bums, thus hinting at the fact that this area was likely were disinvested in and run down. This could potentially be a reason why the dying of trees due to lead refineries nearby in this park did not result in any action being taken toward lead remediation. This was over a hundred years before Asarco closed its doors, implying that it likely was not considered an urgent enough issue to cause change until 100 years later.

The map visualizes the proximity of this park to Omaha lead smelting operations. As can be seen from the map, Jefferson Square Park is a dark grey area, meaning that it had an average lead concentration of 401-1200 ppm. This is one of the higher classifications of lead concentrations on this map, meaning that Jefferson Square Park was very heavily contaminated with lead due to nearby lead smelting operations, and thus that the dying trees mentioned in this report were probably a result of contamination from lead smelting operations, though not from lead contamination itself since lead is not harmful to plants.

This report serves to emphasize the fact that lead contamination in Omaha goes farther back than most people would think based on when remediation efforts began. This report was relased for the year of 1892, just 22 years after Asarco began operations in Omaha, and clearly just 22 years of lead contamination was enough to cause trees in this park harm. This puts into perspective the contamination that came with over 100 years of lead smelting operations.

WM. R. Adams

Omaha Board of Park Commissioners

Omaha Board of Park Commissioners

1892

Gabbi Caito

Scan of a physical report

English

Physical report

Report from Omaha's Board of Park Commissioners for the year of 1892 detailing the parks of Omaha and their conditions

Lead contamination from nearby refineries

Report of the Board of Park Commissioners for the Year Ending December 31st, 1892

Physical report