The US Environmental Protection Agency is celebrating the successful remediation of the 10,000th residential garden contaminated with lead in the city of Omaha, Nebraska since 1999, leaving around 4,100 properties which still require cleaning up.
Omaha City Council asked the Agency to address lead contamination from the former ASARCO lead smelter on the banks of the Missouri River after its closure in 1997 following a century-and-a-quarter of operations.
It was added to the Superfund programme in 1999.
In the years since then, the Agency has sampled more than 39,000 properties in Omaha and has now completed remediation works on 10,000 of them.
Its investment of $247.9m in the city has contributed to community revitalization and redevelopment and increased property values and stimulated employment and growth.
"EPA's successful work in Omaha has kept families healthier, secured property values in the city's heart, and provided valuable job training," said EPA regional administrator Karl Brooks.
"This Agency has worked productively with a range of local partners for over a decade to get the lead out of Omaha, and we're staying on task until we've finished our job."
Mr Brooks joined local politicians to celebrate the achievement and said the main objective is to protect current and future health of Omaha's children and the number of children with elevated blood lead had fallen from 33% in 1998 to less than 2% today.
He also said EPA contracts have provided $61m on local materials and labour and added 300 high-paying seasonal jobs to the local economy for each of the past four years.
It also has a $500,000 agreement with Omaha Metropolitan Community College to provide training and certification to local workers.
