The EPA Heralds Its Omaha Cleanup as a Success. But We Found Many Yards Still Have Toxic Levels of Lead.

The EPA heralded its Omaha, Nebraska lead cleanup as a success, but according to ProPublica's investigation, independent soil testing tells a different story. Since nineteen ninety-nine, the agency has spent two hundred seventy-three million dollars cleaning nearly fourteen thousand yards—the largest residential lead cleanup in the country. But ProPublica and the Flatwater Free Press tested over six hundred properties, including one hundred fifty marked as remediated. One in ten of those supposedly cleaned yards still contained lead at levels requiring further cleanup. Nearly a quarter of all properties tested could also qualify for additional work under updated EPA guidance. Homeowner Mary Royers, an educator, planted a garden after seeing her yard marked remediated in green on the city's website—only to discover months later her soil contained one point five times the EPA's cleanup threshold. The agency declined to comment on the findings but said it plans to release a new site study in October twenty twenty-seven.

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