Metropolitan Community College at Do Space is the site of the first event in the Claire M. Hubbard Foundation’s Sustainability Series.
Kara Eastman, executive director at Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance, is one of three guests who will speak at the event this Thursday, from 4-6 p.m.
Eastman says Omaha is still the largest residential superfund site in the nation as a result of lead contamination.
She says the city has 84,000 homes that were built before 1978, the year lead-based paint was banned. Eastman says because of that, we are still seeing the ramifications of lead being in our environment.
She says when Omaha Healthy Kids goes into homes they often find households are suffering from other health hazards as well such as poor indoor air quality or out of control pests.
"What we know is that if we actually invested in creating a safe, healthy environment that also increased energy efficiency, we would see some pretty incredible results from the health perspective. We would have much healthier and safer kids. And then we would also see market values going up. And that energy conservation efforts would be increased. We know that replacing windows, for example, reduces lead exposure and improves energy conservation and market value.”
The other speakers who will join Eastman this Thursday are Peter McCormick, executive director at the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute and Chuck Schroeder, executive director of the Rural Futures Institute at UNL.
To register for the event, the website is mccneb.edu/ce.