EPA Public Comments

Following the EPA’s release of their final record of decision, they accepted public comments and concerns from a number of organizations and individuals, including but not limited to: Union Pacific Railroad Company (UP), ASARCO, Inc, Gould Electronics, Inc, OLS Citizen’s Advisory Group (CAG), Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance (OHKA), Lead Safe Omaha Coalition, State Senator H. Mello, State Senator J. Nordquist, Mayor Mike Fahey, Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ), Nebraska Department of Health and Senior Services, Douglas County Health Department, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

These comments were collected between October 30, 2008 and January 15, 2009. Originally, public fora were scheduled to close two months prior to the final closing date on November 30, but an outpour of comments from the public as well as multiple requests from public officials lead the EPA to extending the timeframe in which public comments were collected.

There concerns expressed in these comments range from concerns regarding toxicity from paint to concerned residents of Council Bluffs. Below, you will find highlighted documents, but all of the comments can be found individually indexed at the EPA's site profile for the Omaha Superfund Site.

Mayor Mike Fahey addresses the concerns he has regarding the importance of education and public outreach saying that, "The actual measurement of impact on Omaha children shows that health education, testing, and addressing lead-based paint exposures is the most effective approach."

Community outreach was recognized by public health and government officials as an effective approach to limiting the amount of children with elevated BLLs.

Mayor Fahey also highlights his concerns about lead-based paint saying, "we believe there is a great amount of data to support our position for the need to incorporate lead-base paint as another source for elevated lead in children," showing that the risk of exposure from paint alone is common knowledge amongst officials, but comments from Brenda Council and the Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance say otherwise.

This meeting held by the Community Advisory Group (CAG) served as a public forum in which community members could communicate their concerns to public officials at the head of this committee.

Ms. Barrientos-Patlan expressed concerns about the use of the soil in Iowa landfills. Bob Feild of the EPA mentions that it will be used as daily cover and concerns regarding its proximity to a school are not addressed in this meeting. While Mr. Feild mentions he will get back to the CAG, there is no record of this happening.

Further, multiple community members expressed concerns about requirements and guidelines followed by contractors enlisted by the EPA to assist in lead remediation efforts. One, Ms. Thompson, "cited complaints about workers not laying down plastic to collect paint chips and workers not wearing respirators," and pushed for more regulations to prevent corner-cutting. Mr. Feild largely wrote this off, saying that there are regulations and there is no more he can do.

The Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance (OHKA) criticized the EPA for not following through on promises to increase funding towards public education or to identify specific reasons for the decreased BLLs in the Omaha area.

The OHKA also implored the EPA to focus more on education and community integration to ensure the success of lead remediation efforts. They also noted the EPA did not follow through on their promise to specify, in the ROD, community engagement efforts and specific steps they were taking to complete their goals.

The OHKA also noted the EPA should strive to "provide a collaborative, coordinated, and holistic approach to address all sources of lead exposure within Omaha." This is in line with other public comments that encourage the EPA to look into lead-based paint as a point source of lead exposure. In the ROD lead-contaminated soil is the main point of focus, despite lead-based paint being a known source of contamination.

Denise Nelson, a resident of Council Bluffs, expressed her concerns regarding remediation in and around her area. She noted that "Several sites in residential areas of Council Bluffs tested between 400 and 800, ppm in the initial site investigation and one site tested greater than 800 ppm," thus calling for remediation in her town.

This concern is one that we had as well, with ASARCO's location so close to Council Bluffs, it seems negligent that CB and the surrounding area is excluded from the Omaha Superfund Site. This makes the designation feel very political in which it is not the actual lead that is being addressed by the EPA but rather the complaints by Omaha.

Actions such as excluding CB from the OLS further build distrust between government/public officials and the general populus. The exclusion of CB as well as a lack of remediation after properties tested above the threshold suggests the the EPA is not aiming to clean up lead as a result of industrialization, but rather to address concerns brought to their attention by the City of Omaha.

Pam Sorrell encourages reduction to the lead-concentration threshold that will trigger remediation down to 400 ppm. Ultimately, enough comments were received by health officials and the public with this request that the EPA did lower the requirements. This shows that reaching out is not futile and things can get done. However, it begs the question of why it wasn't that low in the first place.

In response to an editorial published in the Omaha World Herald on December 6, 2007, the Community Advisory Group (CAG) sent this letter addressing their concerns with the publication.

The editorial in question highlights lead in soil as the main point of exposure for children. The CAG disputes this saying there is no evidence to prove that and, in fact, the main source of exposure is lead-paint. The CAG argues that the editorial will discourage future funding in remediation for lead-based paint while also provide the community with a false sense of security once their properties' soil are remediated. This speaks to the breakdown in communication that could end up being detrimental to the community it is trying to inform.

In the editorial, the EPA also attempted to inflate the positive effects of remediation, and the CAG responded to this by saying, "no doubt many factors have contributed to this decline, including an increase in the number of children screened, community education and outreach, lead-based paint hazard control activities, and EPA's activities. The CAG is unaware of any information available to discern the contribution of these various factors to the decline in blood lead levels."