‘Buried Truth’ Walking Tour
Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026
Free, hour-long tours — Noon and 2 p.m.
Starting from Kiewit Luminarium
For more than a century a lead smelting plant on Omaha’s riverfront pumped toxic pollution over the city. Since 1999, federal and local governments have spent millions on cleanup — but lead’s legacy still persists.
Join Flatwater Free Press reporters Chris Bowling and Leah Keinama on Oct. 18 at noon or 2 p.m. for a free guided tour of The RiverFront and discussion of “Buried Truth,” a yearlong project investigating the city’s lead cleanup from Flatwater and ProPublica. The mile-long walk, which will last about an hour, features public art displays including portraits by local artist Watie White as well as photos and reporting from Flatwater Free and ProPublica’s project.
For those who can’t make the tours, the displays will stay up through the end of October with online resources to do a self-guided tour.
About ‘Buried Truth’
Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica began investigating the Omaha Lead Superfund site in August 2025. By that time, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and City of Omaha had been remediating yards, meaning digging up and replacing lead-contaminated soil, for decades. Our question was: what does lead look like in Omaha today, and are the yards that were cleaned up still lead free?
We tested more than 600 yards here and found one in 10 cleaned up properties had too much lead. One in two homes have too much lead if the government used modern guidance for risky lead levels in soil. When residents took their Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica soil test results to the city and EPA, they got different reactions. Some got new soil cleanups. Some did not.
Last year the Trump administration also rolled back cleanup guidance, worrying people who have enough lead in their soil to be considered risky, but not enough to warrant cleanup.
