In the last 10 months, residents in neighborhoods across Omaha, Nebraska, have contacted the city and federal government after tests by the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica showed they had enough of the toxic metal in their yards for the dirt to be dug up and replaced under Environmental Protection Agency rules.

But the responses they’ve received have been inconsistent.

Three of them received new testing and were promised additional cleanup. Yet others were denied a new cleanup or told the news organizations they never heard back. 

One resident said the city tested her yard, found it exceeded the EPA’s lead contamination level and sent her a letter saying cleanup was necessary. Months later the city backtracked, saying she did not qualify because she lived outside the primary cleanup zone. Another said she called 14 times before the city told her it would not retest because she hadn’t built or demolished anything in her yard since the EPA replaced the soil in 2012. 

The EPA and the city have spent decades cleaning up residential properties in east Omaha after a century of pollution from a lead smelter and other factories downtown. The EPA had set a lead level that it uses to determine which properties to clean up, and the news organizations’ tests found these residents’ yards were over the limit.

But the city said that according to EPA rules, it can’t rely on testing by the newsrooms or any other groups to drive testing and cleanup decisions.

Peter Olson thought he was one of the lucky ones. His yard was one of thousands that the federal government had dug up and replaced since cleanup began in 1999. But a Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica soil test conducted in September showed he had too much of the toxic metal in the yard. When his wife contacted the EPA, Olson hoped a federal employee would offer another test and cleanup.

Instead, all the agency could do was examine a small area in the backyard where a deck once stood, according to an email Olson shared from an EPA project manager for the site. The rest of the yard, including an area that was high for lead in the news organizations’ tests, was ineligible, the agency said without explaining why.

The city told Mary Royers it could test her soil because a shed had been demolished and a garage had been built in her backyard, which could have disturbed or uncovered contaminated soil. Unlike with Olson, the city analyzed the whole yard and agreed to clean up several areas around her house. 

Olson said he and his wife agreed to the more limited testing the EPA offered them, though they worry about what might be in the rest of their yard. They’re currently waiting for the testing.

Omahans’ dirt generally qualifies for cleanup if it has more than 400 parts per million of lead in it — about the equivalent of a marble dispersed in a 10-gallon bucket of soil. The EPA adopted that standard in 2009. To date, contractors have dug up and replaced nearly 14,000 yards, mostly in a 27-square-mile area on the city’s east side, which has been declared a federal Superfund site. In 2015, the agency handed over remaining remediation work to Omaha.

Asked about the different responses residents have received, EPA spokesperson Kellen Ashford said in an email that each property is unique, and new sampling depends heavily on whether site conditions have changed because of construction or demolition that might have disturbed or exposed the soil.

“EPA strives to be fair and equitable in its decision-making process while adjusting to changes in agency policies, funding, and cleanup approaches,” he said.

Steve Zivny, who leads Omaha’s Lead Information Office, also said these decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. The city is able to test and clean up within the site but must seek approval from the EPA before doing any work outside those boundaries. The city is paid with settlement money from the smelter and other polluters.

Recently, the city sent letters to some residents outside the boundaries of the Superfund site saying they needed cleanup but reversed course after the EPA said the homes would not qualify, Zivny said.

Amy Haney lives about a half-mile outside the site’s western edge, a boundary the EPA drew by estimating where only a small percentage of homes were likely to have high lead levels. As a result, Haney’s home was never tested. But a Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica test found it had nearly 1.5 times the level that would qualify for a lead cleanup. 

The result felt like a “kick in the gut,” she said. The news organizations tested 35 properties within a three-quarter-mile radius of Haney’s home. Four, including Haney’s house, were above the cleanup level.

Haney contacted the city, which told her the EPA would retest her home this summer.

While the EPA has cleaned up homes outside the site in the past, Ashford said any sampling beyond the site’s bounds right now is for investigative purposes only, and those homeowners may not be eligible for remediation. 

The agency’s priority is cleaning up within the Superfund site as well as properties that impact children, he said.

Even when kids test high for lead, however, the city and the EPA don’t always retest yards.

Sabrina, a north Omaha resident whose soil we tested, said doctors found lead in three of her children. (She asked that her last name not be published to protect their identities.) In 2020, after her daughter’s blood-lead test, the city and a nonprofit replaced windows that contained lead-based paint. But they didn’t test the yard.

The only information Sabrina said she received about the dirt was the EPA test results from 2003 that showed the yard didn’t qualify for cleanup.

“I felt like that was kind of a lazy response,” Sabrina said. Despite the window replacements, doctors have found lead in her other kids’ blood.

The Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica tested her soil in May and found the lead was over the cleanup level and twice as high as the EPA’s 2003 test records showed. 

Sabrina requested a new test, but the city denied it, saying no work had been done on the property and it couldn’t rely on the newsrooms’ results. 

Zivny said the city has asked the EPA to revisit that decision in light of her children’s blood test results.