What Omahans Knew Before Superfund Site Designation

Spring of 1998

Before the Superfund site designation in 2003, the community was already aware that lead was a problem in Omaha. Following the ASARCO plant’s closure, local media outlets reported on the lead it had contaminated Omaha with. Local news is an important part of community outreach, because it’s a prominent way people intake information about the areas they live in. Two of KETV’s 1998 news briefs covered the issue of lead from ASARCO and the community’s concerns.  

The first of these news briefs aired on March 31, 1998 and was titled “Concerns about ASARCO cleanup plans in 1998.” It focused on the safety concerns Omaha residents had after they learned about the lead problem following the ASARCO plant being shut down. At that time, according to this KETV story, the public was aware of plans to turn the land that the ASARCO plant had been on into a public park. Citizens were concerned that this plan would negatively impact public health, so they lobbied the city government to spend more time evaluating health risks before ratifying it. As shown in the televised news story, one of those community members said, “The public is being left out, and that’s why we ask for the thirty-day extension. It’s so that they can be educated on what’s going on. There’s a lot of citizens in Omaha that do not know about the ASARCO situation” (KETV, 1998, 0:44-0:56). 

This KETV news story also reported on environmental concerns regarding tearing down the ASARCO plant and covering the area contaminated by lead with soil. The news clip said that ASARCO argued this would be effective, but opponents were unsure. Furthermore, people wanted to ensure that ASARCO would be financially responsible for anything that went wrong with the cleanup effort. 

The second of KETV’s 1998 news briefs regarding the lead problem aired on May 19 of that year and was titled “Omaha leaders explain cleanup effort for old lead plant.” It focused more on the details regarding the city’s plan to turn the closed and vacant ASARCO plant into a park. According to the reporting in the news clip, the plan had three phases: demolish the buildings (after cleaning them to get rid of lead dust), remove above-ground hazardous material and cover the contaminated ground with synthetic materials, and then redo the landscape to build a park. While ASARCO said this plan, including the second phase, would be safe and effective, opponents argued that capping the hazards in the ground with the synthetic material wouldn’t be entirely effective, because it wouldn’t prevent groundwater discharges into the Missouri River.   

Therefore, the public had some knowledge of the lead problem in Omaha. These KETV news reports show that in the late 1990s some of the city’s residents had already raised concerns with how the cleanup would be handled. They were aware that the ASARCO plant had closed and that the soil had a high lead concentration because of the plant, and, consequently, they were concerned about the health and financial risks this could pose. This left a need for lead remediation in Omaha, leading to the EPA’s designation of the Superfund site and a Community Advisory Group.  

References:

KETV NewsWatch 7. "KETV ARCHIVE: Omaha leaders explain cleanup effort for old lead plant." Aired May 19, 1998. KETV, 1:43. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOc8buWerp0

KETV NewsWatch 7. "KETV ARCHIVE: Concerns about ASARCO cleanup plans in 1998." Aired March 31, 1998. KETV, 1:34. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy3-tJihp7g