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What You Should Know About Lead Contamination in Omaha, Nebraska

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ProPublica reporter Cassandra Garibay collects soil samples to test for lead in Omaha, Nebraska, last fall. Chris Bowling/Flatwater Free Press For more than a century, a lead smelter and other factories in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, spewed toxic dust across the city, contaminating the soil and causing lead poisoning. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the city of Omaha have spent decades trying to clean it up. But in 2019, the EPA acknowledged its plan may not do enough to protect kids, and the agency is reexamining the site to potentially expand the cleanup, which could result in more residential yards being remediated. Journalists at the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica teamed up to report on how well the cleanup effort is going . This included collecting soil samples from more than 600 yards in and around the affected area, called the Superfund site. Many people we met in the process told us they had never heard of the Superfund site and had no idea they could be at...
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Omaha Is Home to a Massive Superfund Site. Most Kids Living There Aren’t Tested for Lead.

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Belinda Daniels panicked in 2018 when the pediatrician said her 1-year-old son, Jovanni, had lead in his body. The toxic metal could stunt his brain, the doctor told her, but catching it early meant she could prevent more damage. Daniels moved out of her Omaha, Nebraska, apartment that had chipping lead paint. The doctor continued testing Jovanni periodically while Daniels followed instructions on cleaning, handwashing and keeping Jovanni away from contaminated dirt. Eventually, the lead level in Jovanni’s blood dropped. While the now-8-year-old has anger and impulse-control issues, Daniels said it could have been a lot worse. “They told me that the side effects of it would be him being autistic” or having “very delayed behaviors,” she said. Not every child’s high lead levels are caught as early as Jovanni’s. In Nebraska, it’s largely up to the doctor or health system to decide whether to test a child’s blood for lead. As a result, local public health officials say, not enough kids...
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Colorado Marijuana Regulators Pledge Crackdown on Intoxicating Hemp

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Colorado regulators announced on Monday that they plan to crack down on companies that illegally sell cheaper and potentially hazardous hemp products as marijuana. The state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division said it had detected “regulatory compliance issues” that threaten to unravel the marijuana industry in the nation’s first legal retail market. These issues “present serious risks to public safety, market integrity and the tax revenue framework that supports Colorado’s regulated cannabis industry,” the agency stated in an industry bulletin. A Denver Gazette and ProPublica investigation in January reported that, despite Colorado being one of the first states to ban the sale of intoxicating hemp products, the legislature and regulators failed to adopt many regulations that other states have employed to keep hemp products off marijuana dispensary shelves. Creating the liquid distillate for vapes and edibles from hemp is much cheaper than using marijuana, giving companies a competiti...
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Caught in the Crackdown: As Arrests at Anti-ICE Protests Piled Up, Prosecutions Crumbled

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The National Guard soldiers in desert camo piled out of unmarked vans in East Los Angeles last June, cordoning off East Sixth Street, a residential street lined with single family houses, and blocking a nearby road leading to an elementary school. A squad of federal agents moved in flinging flash-bang grenades — explosives designed to disorient — into a small home before storming inside. They’d come for Alejandro Orellana, a Marine Corps veteran and UPS employee accused of being a central figure in a secret confederacy of insurrectionists. A news video had shown the 30-year-old distributing water, food and face shields to people protesting the Trump administration’s immigration roundups in Los Angeles. Bill Essayli, a former state legislator who leads the federal prosecutor’s office in Los Angeles, joined the raid along with a Fox News crew. With cameras rolling, Orellana, his parents and brothers were led out in handcuffs as agents searched their home. On Fox News, Essayli, sporti...
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