United States Environmental Protection Agency
Region VII
POLLUTION REPORT

Subject: 

The Omaha Lead Site is located in the Omaha metropolitan area including Council Bluffs, and Carter Lake, Iowa.  Specific boundaries of the site have not yet been defined because the sampling activities for the entire area of investigation are not complete.

Several businesses and manufacturing companies used or processed lead at their facilities in the Omaha metropolitan area.  ASARCO Incorporated (ASARCO) operated a lead refinery at 500 Douglas St. in Omaha for over 100 years beginning in the 1870s.  The operation of the refinery ceased in 1997.  As a routine part of the refinery operation, lead particles were emitted into the atmosphere at the refinery.  In addition, the Gould Inc. lead battery recycling plant located at 555 Farnam Street in Omaha was a secondary smelter of lead from discarded lead batteries, closing in 1982.  The blast furnace used to smelt the lead at the Gould plant emitted lead particles into the air from that smelter.

There was limited activity conducted under this action memo during this reporting period (most activity occurred under the separate action memo for the >2,500ppm yards).  One property was excavated at 2575 Pirece Street.  The weekly tracking sheet is included as an attachment listing the project totals.

The majority of the work involved meeting with residents who complained of damage to their sidewalks and/or driveways.

On October 24, 2003, a new group of 2 new day cares and 8 elevated blood-lead level properties were added to the schedule for removal actions.

This brings the total to 82 properties that have been placed under this removal action to date (including 32 day cares from Nov.-Dec. 2002).

These 10 new properties will begin removal activities in the immediate future.

There has been 62 EBLs and Day Cares that have been completed at this time during both phases of the removal action.

Due to a new grouping of properties that are expected and will require lead contaminated soil to be excavated (over 330) involving the other removal action, a third excavation crew is scheduled to be mobilized and commence work on November 3, 2003.

Overall, involving the entire Omaha Lead Site, there has been over 10,000 properties that have been sampled by Black and Veatch at this time.  Over 5,200 samples have been processed and over 11,000 property accesses have been received.

The second 1,000 ton stockpile has now been sent to the Loess Hills Regional Sanitary Landfill located in Malvern, Iowa 51551.  There is a separation of billing for the two separate removal actions for accountability purposes.

A third 1,000 ton stockpile has been sampled and is scheduled for transportation and disposal next week.