United States of America and State of Nebraska v. Union Pacific Railroad Company and Union Pacific Corporation: Consent Decree

This document is a consent decree between Union Pacific, a potentially responsible party, and the United States Government from May, 2011.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a consent decree is “a judicial decree that sanctions a voluntary agreement between parties in dispute.” This document forced Union Pacific to pay for and perform work towards the remediation of the Omaha Lead Site. The decree required Union Pacific to pay $3.15 million for health education and community involvement work about lead and its health risks. The Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance would implement the community involvement and health education work over five years. The decree allocated $3.15 million for this work.

 Through this decree the EPA held a party responsible and educated the community at the same time. Accomplishing both these tasks was significant in accomplishing Superfund's mission in Omaha. This is in contrast to the settlement with ASARCO, which only allocated money to the government. Most importantly, this education helped reduce residents' exposure to lead. The decree also required Union Pacific to pay $9,500,000 for the cost of past responses taken on by the EPA. Additionally, Union Pacific paid $400,000 to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality. The decree also required Union Pacific to pay $11,850,000 for funding for other lead-related programs. These programs included: stabilization of lead-based paint, the City of Omaha's Lead Hazard Registry, child blood-lead screening in Douglas County Health Department's Lead Poising Prevention Program, and response to interior lead-contaminated dust. Finally, Union Pacific paid $100,000 to the Department of Interior for natural resource damage.

 This legal action was significant for many reasons. First, funding for Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance and Douglas County’s Lead Poisoning Prevention Program directly assisted in lead poisoning prevention. This benefitted the lives of many Omaha residents, especially children. Union Pacific’s payments also defrayed the costs of previous clean-up work. However, this document is missing an assessment of how much Union Pacific owed the United States Government. It is, thus, challenging to say to what extent the EPA accomplished the goal of "making responsible parties pay" in the case of Union Pacific. The consent decree with Union Pacific did a good deal to make the company pay for the part they played in polluting the Omaha Lead Site. However, without knowing an exact quantification of the harm done by Union Pacific, it cannot be said with certainty the extent to which the EPA was effective in accomplishing their goals.

 The EPA's actions against Union Pacific contributed significantly to environmental justice in Omaha. Providing education to those most at risk in the community helped reduce the harmful effects of lead on Omaha's children. Given lead's negative effects on development, this may prove to be significant in slowing the growth of inequality in the city.[1]In the long term, educating the public about the danger of lead is significant for multiple reasons. First, it protects people from lead pollution in the Superfund site. Second, it teaches people about other common sources of lead, such as lead paint. This further protects people from the negative impacts of lead poisoning from common sources. Additionally, the implementation of lead screenings in schools through this settlement is impactful. By screening children when they are most vulnerable, the program protects future generations from the harms of lead. This can help mitigate the impacts of lead pollution as it is concurrently stabilized and removed. Overall, while it is challenging to quantify the extent to which the government held Union Pacific responsible for their pollution, it is certain that the results of this consent decree contributed to greater environmental justice in Omaha.

[1] Fredrickson, Leif. 2017. “The Age of Lead: Metropolitan Change, Environmental Health, and Inner City Underdevelopment in Baltimore.” University of Virginia.