For the past year, we have been doing something slightly unusual for a newsroom. We have been digging into the dirt.
Reporter Chris Bowling and Leah Keinama, our director of civic journalism, have spooned dirt into test tubes from hundreds of yards across the metro Omaha area, mostly from the eastern part of the city. The samples then were sent to an independent lab and tested for lead.
East Omaha is where hundreds of thousands of people live. It’s where Bowling, Keinama and I live. It is the site of one of the largest environmental disasters in our state’s history, a disaster no one talks much about anymore. It’s the site of the largest Superfund cleanup of its kind in American history, a decades-long attempt to keep families and especially children safe from lead poisoning that harms their development and damages their brains.
Our task was as simple as it was ambitious: Has that cleanup worked?
We founded the Flatwater Free Press to do big, ambitious journalism. To take big swings. To uncover and then potentially help solve some of the biggest problems this state faces.
Bowling, Keinama and a team of incredible journalists we eventually partnered with at ProPublica did exactly as we intended with the stories we published this week — stories that make plain that many Omaha families are still endangered by the soil beneath our feet.
An eye-opening number of homes whose yards have already been allegedly cleaned up by the federal or city government ended up testing sky-high for lead yet again.
Many of these families assumed, quite understandably, that they were safe.
And when people started taking the independent, lab-certified test results we sent them to the city, asking for help, some got help. Some did not. And, quizzed by Bowling, neither federal nor local leaders could really explain why.
We have another story for you next week, another that will illustrate that our legacy of lead is still a profound and profoundly worrisome problem.
As a resident of this city, I am angry. I’m angry that government at various levels is trying but failing to protect my loved ones, my neighbors, my friends.
As Flatwater’s editor, I am proud. I’m so proud that a team of smart, dedicated journalists got down onto their hands and knees, dug into the dirt and uncovered a story that every Nebraskan should know.
Here’s the “Buried Truth” project page, which includes more info and every story we have written on our legacy of lead.
Scooters everywhere: They seemingly appeared from nowhere in the past year or so, popping up like dandelions and now impossible to miss across the state.
They are teens and pre-teens on all types of scooters, sometimes on sidewalks, sometimes right out in the street, sometimes going slow and sometimes very fast, sometimes wearing helmets, sometimes not, sometimes endangering themselves and others.
A new story from Flatwater’s Jeremy Turley and Kaitlyn Kelly explores this phenomenon from all angles. Where did they come from? How many kids are getting hurt? How are parents grappling with this? And how are police and policymakers dealing with the e-scooter craze?
Nostalgic pizza: Peace at home and abroad. A balanced budget. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Who doesn’t miss the ’90s? Acclaimed chef Dave Utterback for sure misses the pizza he snarfed as a ’90s kid. He has opened a new restaurant, Shredders, — yes, named after the villain from the Ninja Turtles — that leans heavily into the pizza we loved as kids.
And here’s the best part, reports food critic Sarah Baker Hansen … the creative pizzas and quality ingredients will satisfy the child within you and your adult taste buds, too.
New Omaha opera: Carole Jeanpierre has fought for 23 years to write and produce an opera, reports Leo Adam Biga in a story we published today. She survived a car wreck, cancer and some seriously long odds.
Flatwater hearts Maha: The Maha Music Festival is back this Saturday and Flatwater will be there. Buy a ticket, check out Nebraska’s coolest day of music and, as a bonus, chat with Flatwater journalists who will be stationed in the Maha Community Village. We will see you there.
Five days of Flatwater: Finally, today I have the distinct honor of starting to unveil the five events we are holding to celebrate Flatwater’s fifth birthday. The first event is the biggie: It’s FlatFest, our big annual celebration, being held this year on Sept. 23 at a sexy-looking barn on the outskirts of Lincoln. Learn more and buy your tickets here.
Because we are overachievers, we are gonna offer you, dear reader, four more chances to celebrate with us.
Here’s the second event: On Saturday, Sept. 19, before the Nebraska football game that day, our journalists will be appearing at the Raygun store only a few blocks from Memorial Stadium. More info here if you scroll down.
Show up, buy one of our new T-shirts and chat with our journalists about story ideas or questions you have.
I will unveil another event next Friday … it’s gonna be a good one.
Questions wanted: Some of our best story ideas come from readers, and they typically start with a burning question that just cries out for an answer. Have a question that our reporters need to look into? Reach our newsroom at [email protected].
See you next week,
Matthew Hansen, Executive Editor
Thanks to this week’s sponsor
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Here’s what we’re into this week: News from around Nebraska
Every week, we like to share great Nebraska journalism, no matter who made it. Here’s what caught our eye this week:
First, a cool update. In our June 26 newsletter, we included a story about how unpaid lunch balances were growing among North Platte school students. Someone from Farm Credit Services — I salute you, anonymous subscriber — read the newsletter. Then the company started a process by which it PAID OFF those unpaid school lunch balances. How cool is that?
On with the news:
- As the University of Nebraska faces the threat of another round of budget cuts, the university gives out $66 million in tuition remission programs, some of which are unfunded mandates from the Legislature, reports the Lincoln Journal Star’s Chris Dunker. (You may need LJS subscriber access to read this story.)
- Really important one from the Journal Star’s Livia Ziskey. Nebraska schools force kids into seclusion rooms. We don’t know how often it is happening. (You may need LJS subscriber access to read the story.)
- Amazon drones are beginning deliveries in parts of the Omaha metro, and as you may imagine, it’s creating a buzz in some neighborhoods, reports the Omaha World-Herald’s Julie Anderson. (You may need OWH subscriber access to view.)
- Lancaster County officials are investigating the nearly 20,000 rejected petition signatures from the Good Government Lincoln group, Nebraska Public Media’s Maddie Ames reports. So far, five people have been arrested on suspicion of fraud. The petitions aimed to create three charter amendments for the City of Lincoln to adjust local elections.
- Federal officials have added Nebraska to the list of states with residents who are part of a national outbreak tied to the cyclospora parasite, the Nebraska Examiner’s Cindy Gonzalez reports. At least 92 Nebraska cases have been directly tied to the ongoing outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
- Hastings College is debuting a $40 million residence hall later this month, Andy Raun at the Hastings Tribune reports. The building, called The 1882, has room for around 320 students.
- High school football will look a little different this year, and the state body that oversees it hopes that scheduling changes will make blowouts less common, reports Nebraska Public Media’s Aaron Bonderson. (Flatwater’s Jeremy Turley wrote about the issue in a story we published last fall.)
