Environmental Concerns
In 1889 ASARCO, a smeltering company, consolidated several plants at the corner of 5th & Douglas Streets in Downtown Omaha. By 1915 it was the largest lead refinery in the world. In 1972 the plant was found to be releasing high amounts of lead into the air and ground surrounding the plant, and in 1995 ASARCO submitted a demolition and site cleanup plan to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality. The company was fined $3.6 million in 1996 for discharging lead and other pollutants into the Missouri River, and the plant was closed in July, 1997. After extensive cleanup the land was turned over to the City of Omaha for use as a 23-acre (93,000 m2) park. All of North Omaha, comprising more than 8,000 acres (32 km²), was declared a Superfund site, and as of 2003, 290 acres (1.2 km²) had been cleaned.
Read more about this topic: Downtown Omaha
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“Art and science coincide insofar as both aim to improve the lives of men and women. The latter normally concerns itself with profit, the former with pleasure. In the coming age, art will fashion our entertainment out of new means of productivity in ways that will simultaneously enhance our profit and maximize our pleasure.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)