The Site is located in the Omaha metropolitan area and encompasses Council Bluffs, Iowa, Carter Lake, Iowa, and east Omaha. It is centered around downtown Omaha, Nebraska. ASARCO Incorporated (ASARCO) operated a lead refinery at 500 Douglas Street in Omaha, Nebraska, 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 Incorporated Lead Battery Recycling Plant was located at 555 Farnam Street in Omaha and was a secondary smelter of lead from discarded lead batteries. The blast furnace used to smelt the lead at the Gould plant emitted lead particles into the air from that refinery. The Gould plant closed in 1982. Several other facilities in the Omaha area used lead in their manufacturing processes. A few of these included Carter White Lead at 21st and Locust Streets which produced white lead paint bases and red lead and litharge protective coatings until 1936, Omaha Shot and Lead which later became Lawrence Shot and Lead, and then became National Lead Company which manufactured lead shot by melting pig lead, Grant Storage Battery Company, Storage Battery Factory, and Exide Corporation which manufactured lead storage batteries. Numerous other locations in the Omaha area such as foundries, iron works, metal salvaging companies and other manufacturers used or processed lead at their facilities.
The plan is to continue the implementation of this removal action that includes excavating lead contaminated soil from residential properties with one or more non-foundation soil concentrations greater than 2,500 mg/kg.
Continued activities are being centralized from the Missouri River Treatment Plant located at 5600 S 10th Street, Omaha, Nebraska 68107-3501. The city of Omaha has partnered with EPA to allow the use of a portion of the facility.
There were nine homes that were excavated and backfilled this week operating with two crews.
Attached is a table that lists the work progress for this reporting period and project totals.
On Friday, October 24, 2003, there was an additional 7 properties that were added to the greater than 2,500 ppm lead contaminated soil list to have removal actions performed. That brings the total to 51 properties that are part of this removal action at this point.
EPA is in the process of ammending the action memorandum to include properties with non-foundations concentrations greater than 1,200 ppm to be eligible for removals.
Due to a new grouping of properties that are expected and will require lead contaminated soil to be excavated (over 330 properties), 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.
|
