A History of the Climate Crisis and Environmental Racism in North Omaha

19th century, 20th century, 21st century, Activism, Civic Infrastructure, Environment, Geography, Government, Industry, Missouri River, Ownership, Parks, Politics, Poverty, Racism, Redlining, Segregation, Water, weather, White flight, White people

A History of the Climate Crisis and Environmental Racism in North Omaha

North Omaha has suffered from deliberate neglect and environmental racism for over a century, leading to severe health disparities among its residents. Historical policies prioritized industrial growth over community wellbeing, resulting in toxic environments, high infant mortality rates, and persistent pollution. Recent efforts focus on addressing these inequities and promoting environmental justice.

Adam Fletcher Sasse

December 7, 2025

11–16 minutes

For more than a century, systemic policy and benign neglect by the City of Omaha have made North Omaha physically, psychologically, and morally sick. As a sacrifice zone where money was more important than the lives of everyday people, North Omaha has reflected environmental racism and highlighted the climate crisis more than any other part of Omaha. Legal and social architecture, politics and real estate deals and a lot more have effectively relegated Black people and the working poor to live in sick, neglected, and otherwise environmentally catastrophic neighborhoods for generations. This is a history of the climate crisis and environmental racism in North Omaha.

What It Means

Asarco Omaha, North Downtown Omaha, Nebraska — This image shows the ASARCO plant along the Missouri River, featured in my article “A History of Lead Poisoning in North Omaha.”

When I was growing up in the Miller Park neighborhood in the 1980s and 1990s, the media and politicians regularly referred to it as anything north of Dodge Street and east of 72nd, so that’s what I use across this website, including this article.

Starting in the 1920s and continuing today, Omaha’s western white neighborhoods have continuously received modern sewers and paved streets while North Omaha has been left to contend with industrial waste and environmental runoff.

This article details the long history of the climate crisis and environmental racism in North Omaha, including:

Lead rain and soil contamination
Toxic dust and soot
Air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions
Railroad chemical runoff and waste
Toxicification of local drinking water sources
Contamination from former dumps
Wetland drainage
Urban grade raising and the leveling of glacial moraines
Filling of natural ravines and gullies
Waterway channelization and bottomland drainage
The “Concrete Redline” of the North Freeway
Permanent noise and air pollution from high speed traffic (North Freeway, Storz Expressway, Sorenson Parkway)
Localized urban heat island effect
Loss of the urban tree canopy
Inequitable sewer and sanitation infrastructure distribution
Physical bisection and isolation of the community
Discriminatory “blight” diagnoses
Sanitized redevelopment and aesthetic refreshes
Systemic disinvestment and strategic municipal neglect
Creation of “sacrifice zones”
Elevated blood-lead levels in children
Persistent health disparities and medical neglect

What Has Happened

East Omaha Dump, Nebraska — These trucks are unloading at the East Omaha Dump while a tractor pushes a trash fire into a heap.

Deliberately treating North Omaha as a sacrificial lamb for the city’s wealthy industrial leaders, the health of its working class residents has been traded over and over for developmental convenience and municipal growth. While a lot of this is about the natural beauty of the community, it is also about the people who live in North Omaha, as well as the community’s benefits to the entire city.

This systemic damage was not an accidental byproduct of urban development, but the result of specific policy choices that used the areas north of Dodge Street and east of 72nd Street as a repository for the city’s toxins.

Early Industrial Sacrifice and Infrastructure Neglect

As Omaha established its industrial identity in the late 1800s, the city government, banks, and capitalists prioritized the expansion of railroads over the safety of those living nearby new factories and railroad spurs. Residents in low-lying areas like the North Omaha Bottoms and Squatter’s Row were relegated to flood-prone land that lacked basic sanitation, as well as the lost town of East Omaha, which was literally located next to a citywide dump for a century. While neighborhoods west of 42nd Street received the latest in sewer technology and paved roads, the Near North Side was left to contend with the grimy runoff and waste of a rapidly industrializing North Downtown Omaha.

Systematic Toxification and the Lead Crisis

ASARCO, Downtown Omaha, Nebraska — This is the ASARCO plant around 1900, with the Missouri River in the background.

By the turn of the 20th century, the industrialization of North Omaha became lethal. For over a century, the ASARCO lead refinery and other heavy industries like Gould, Inc. rained lead-laced smoke and toxic dust onto the residential yards throughout the community.

This persistent environmental damage was physically locked in place by redlining and restrictive covenants, which prevented Black families from moving away from these hazards. By the time federal health officials identified the extent of the catastrophe in 1998, hundreds of children had already suffered from elevated lead levels, which are directly linked to developmental delays and hearing loss.

Although the EPA declared a 27-square-mile swath of the city a Superfund site in 1999, the remediation focused solely on soil replacement, leaving the human cost of a century of poisoning unaddressed.

Infrastructure Scars and the Concrete Red Line

This is a 1988 picture of the construction site of Sorenson Parkway, Arthur Storz Expressway and the North Freeway in North Omaha, Nebraska — This is a 1988 picture of the construction site of Sorenson Parkway, Arthur Storz Expressway and the North Freeway.

In 1975, the environmental degradation of the community took a physical form with the construction of the North Freeway/Highway 75. This project involved the demolition of an entire swath of North Omaha, destroying more than 2,000 homes, churches, schools, and businesses. Beyond the economic liquidation, the freeway has become a permanent source of noise and air pollution, slicing through the heart of the community.

Established in the late 1880s, within a decade of its opening the Belt Line Railway was redesigned to facilitate the growth of warehouses, factories, and railyards in Omaha. This brought economic capital to the city at the direct expense of the health of the neighborhoods surrounding the railway, many of which are in North Omaha. During its peak years of operation, the corridor was a source of intense environmental damage. The tracks allowed for a concentrated density of heavy industry that rained lead-laced smoke, coal dust, and chemical runoff into residential yards. This proximity was not accidental; it was reinforced by the city’s systemic use of redlining and the diagnosis of blight, which trapped low income residents and Black residents in toxic environments while denying them the capital to improve their homes or move away. The degradation culminated in the late twentieth century when the cumulative impact of industrial activity led to the declaration of a massive federal Superfund site to address widespread lead contamination in the soil.

This concrete trench contributes to a localized climate crisis known as the heat island effect. Along with the lack of tree canopy caused by recent damage by the City of Omaha, as well as the concentration of asphalt throughout the community, makes North Omaha significantly hotter than the affluent, more forested neighborhoods to the west.

Modern Curation and the Health Gap

Eppley Airfield, North Omaha, Nebraska — A 1929 pic of the “Omaha Legion Airport,” later called the “American Legion Municipal Airport”, later called the “Eppley Airfield.”

Today, the environmental damage continues through a combination of benign neglect and sanitized redevelopment. OPPD’s North Omaha coal plant and a variety of industrial sites within the community continue to impact air quality, contributing to high rates of asthma and respiratory distress. The legacy of this neglect is visible in stark health disparities; the infant mortality rate for Black infants remains nearly three times higher than that of white infants.

Furthermore, as modern projects like the Eppley Airfield expansion and the Levi Carter Park activity center move forward, they often focus on “aesthetic refreshes” that hide the underlying environmental disinvestment from visitors rather than remediating the deep-seated toxic legacy left in the soil.

Terraforming in North Omaha

North Omaha’s landscape has been aggressively terraformed to prioritize money making over human health. This systematic reshaping of the earth—through grade raising, waterway channelization, the burial of natural features, wetland drainage, and much more—has radically changed the community’s appearance and realities for more than 150 years. The city dried out flood-prone areas like Fontenelle Park and the Sherman neighborhood, where marginalized residents have been relegated throughout the city’s history. Natural ravines and gullies were filled, while dozens of creeks have been forced underground to accommodate streets and neighborhood infrastructure. Glacial moraines were leveled and urban grades raised to create flat grids for factories and housing developments. This radical reshaping has facilitated industrial lead poisoning and created a localized climate crisis, leaving behind infrastructure scars and environmental disparities that persist today.

Effects of North Omaha’s Climate Catastrophe

East Omaha dump, Nebraska and Iowa — This was the East Omaha dump located between Abbott Drive and the river south of the IC railroad line. The area is an open field today, and there’s no sign of the dump.

More than 120 years ago in the late 19th century, some North Omaha residential areas like the Porters Row, Jefferson Square, and the Burnt District were already notoriously polluted by surrounding heavy industry. The locations of the Union Pacific Yards and ASARCO next door to these residential areas led to the poisoning of their residents, coating everything with sooty residue and toxicifying drinking water. This established a dangerous precedent of proximity between the homes of Black people, poor peoples’ homes, and environmental hazards that would only intensify as the city grew.

In the 20th century, the formalization of segregation physically locked Black people into these toxic environments. Following the 1919 lynching of Will Brown, the US Army created a military perimeter that functioned as the city’s first instance of formal redlining. This was codified in 1936 by the Home Owners Loan Corporation, which designated Black neighborhoods as hazardous. This financial fence meant that Black residents could not access the capital to move away from emerging industrial threats like the ASARCO lead smelter and the OPPD coal plant, which rained lead-laced smoke and toxic dust onto their yards for decades.

The North Freeway still serves as a concrete red line that has not only destroyed intergenerational wealth but also injected constantly significant air and noise pollution directly into the residential heart of the community. It effectively creates a heat island effect that contributes to the localized climate crisis that makes North Omaha a lot hotter and more prone to respiratory issues than its tree-lined counterpart communities in west Omaha.

The lethal cost of this industrial proximity reached a breaking point at the end of the century. In 1998, health officials identified a public health catastrophe where hundreds of North Omaha children tested positive for elevated lead levels. This resulted in the EPA declaring a 27-square-mile swath of the city a Superfund site in 1999. While the government spent hundreds of millions on soil replacement, the program denied direct payments to the residents for the devastating health effects they suffered, including developmental delays and hearing loss.

As the climate crisis intensifies, North Omaha remains more vulnerable to extreme heat and flooding due to a century of infrastructure racism. Black infant mortality in Nebraska remains nearly three times higher than that of white infants, a trend deeply linked to the environmental hazards and systemic neglect of their specific zip codes. North Omaha residents of all races are more routinely afflicted by the outcomes of historic and current toxicification. Public health data show that anything done to remediate the effects of this damage has a mitigating effect, but not eliminating any of the suffering.

Challenging North Omaha’s Climate Crisis

This 1963 pic of Ponca Creek was included in a newspaper's expose on polution in Omaha's environment. — This 1963 pic of Ponca Creek was included in a newspaper’s expose on polution in Omaha’s environment.

Today, the legacy of this neglect is visible in the persistent health disparities that plague the city. The transformation of North Omaha remains a journey from the manufactured slums of the early 1900s to a modern landscape still struggling against a century of environmental racism. The unyielding demand for justice is now, more than ever, a demand for the right to breathe clean air and live on healthy soil.

Despite these hurdles, a new generation of leaders is working to dismantle these veins of segregation and pollution, proving that the unyielding demand for justice must also be a demand for environmental and climate equity. The history of environmental activism in North Omaha is a struggle to dismantle the sacrifice zone created by industrial terraforming, redlining, and municipal neglect. Since the mid-19th century, residents have moved from being subjects of discriminatory planning to active agents of ecological justice, challenging the systemic placement of toxic industries in marginalized neighborhoods.

A huge focus of activism has been the lethal legacy of lead in North Omaha. After over a century of lead rained on the community from the ASARCO refinery, community leaders and the Douglas County Health Department took action in the late 1990s and resulted in a massive lead and soil remediation effort. Healthy Housing Omaha and the Omaha Star have since used public storytelling and education to show the public the ways lead poisoning effects child development, education, and long-term community health.

Activism also centers on air quality and energy justice. A powerful coalition including the NAACP, Sierra Club, and Students for Sustainability has fought for over fifteen years to retire the North Omaha coal-fired power station. These groups, supported by community leaders and public health experts, frame the plant’s emissions as a direct threat to the local ecology. They continue to challenge utility board decisions that extend coal operations, demanding a transition to clean energy that does not further burden North Omaha’s respiratory health.

At the same time, a new generation of leaders is terraforming the community for restoration. The Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District and the City of Omaha are converting the industrial Belt Line Railway into a multi-use trail, while groups like Keep Omaha Beautiful and the North Omaha Trail Project work to expand the urban tree canopy. These efforts aim to mitigate the heat island effect caused by the concrete footprint of the North Freeway and restore the natural ecosystem.

Today

Gould-National Batteries, North Downtown Omaha, Nebraska — When this pic was taken in 1969, the Omaha site was the Lead Division of Gould-National Batteries, Inc.

The environmental history of North Omaha is not merely a record of geological change, but a ledger of intentional human choices that carved systemic inequality into the very earth. From the burial of natural creeks to the industrial poisoning of the soil and the concrete bisection of the community, the land north of Dodge Street and east of 72nd Street has borne the physical weight of Omaha’s progress while being denied its rewards. Yet, the story does not end with degradation.

Today, through the reclamation of the Belt Line Trail, the restoration of the urban canopy, and the persistent advocacy of a new generation of leaders, North Omaha is witnessing a radical re-terraforming rooted in healing rather than exploitation.

The demand for environmental justice is a refusal to remain a sacrifice zone; it is an unyielding assertion that the right to a healthy, breathable, and vibrant community is the ultimate frontier of the civil rights struggle in Omaha.

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Elsewhere Online

Healthy Housing Omaha
Conservation Nebraska
Sierra Club Nebraska Chapter
Beltline Trail / Papio NRD
Keep Omaha Beautiful
North Omaha Trail
Metropolitan Area Planning Agency (MAPA)
Omaha Lead Registry
EPA Omaha Lead Superfund Site
Douglas County Health Department
“OPPD again delays plan to stop burning coal at North Omaha plant” by Jessica Wade for Nebraska Public Media on December 18, 2025

BONUS

George Green, East Omaha Dump, Nebraska — This is a 1931 feature article on the trash sculpture made at the East Omaha dump by George Green, the dump manager.

This image shows areas in North Omaha affected by lead poisoning, according to the US EPA.

Prevent Childhood Lead Poisoning, CDC graphic — This is a CDC graphic illustrating the impact of childhood lead poisoning such as what’s happened in North Omaha.

North Downtown, 15th and Webster, Omaha, Nebraska — The lower lefthand corner shows the Webster Street Station, and the view extending northeast toward the North Omaha Bottoms and Carter Lake. Visible is the McKeen Motor Car Company, the UP Shops, and various industrial buildings.

This is a history of the East Omaha Factory District, which existed from 1894 through 1936.

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A History of the Climate Crisis and Environmental Racism in North Omaha

What It Means

What Has Happened

Early Industrial Sacrifice and Infrastructure Neglect

Systematic Toxification and the Lead Crisis