Buried TOXIC Lead-filled sites next to residential neighborhoods

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Study Says Possible Toxic Sites Unknown to EPA

By Rose Palazzolo ABCNEWS.com

A study found hundreds of potentially lead-filled toxic sites that

officials apparently don't know about. Some of the sites are next to

residential neighborhoods.

Hundreds of former lead smelting factory sites, some next to

residential neighborhoods, could contain toxic levels of lead and no

regulatory agency is aware of them, according to a new survey.The

study, released in the American Public Health Journal, cites 430

former lead smelting factories that are apparently not listed by the

Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) or local Health

Departments.

" It's a potentially dangerous finding, " said Eckel, who

conducted the study as part of his doctoral thesis at Mason

University in Fairfax, Va. He did the investigation in collaboration

with his advisor, and Rabinowitz, a geochemist

with the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

Potentially Hazardous Lead Levels in Soil

In the study, Eckel lists the sites of 640 former lead smelting

factories in 35 states, which he says are filled with potentially

hazardous levels of lead in the soil. Most of the sites are

concentrated in industrial centers including Brooklyn, N.Y., Detroit,

Baltimore, Los Angeles and Chicago. Eckel said he found the sites by

looking in old industry directories and cross checked his findings

with federal and state databases. He spent six years combing through

the databases and books.

Lead smelting factories reclaim the lead in items such as car

batteries and convert it back to pure lead and lead alloys. To

counter the leeching of contaminants sites are either paved over or

cleaned up by EPA officials. But Eckel claims that at least 430 or

two-thirds of former lead smelting sites he identified were not known

by the EPA or by State Departments of Health and therefore weren't

paved over or cleaned up.

Although Eckel currently works at the Environmental Protection

Agency, the EPA had nothing to do with his study and would not

comment on the findings.

" It's impossible for us to comment on a study that we haven't even

seen, " said EPA spokesman itz. " Also, it is hard for us, as

a new agency, to comment on what a previous agency [under former

President Clinton] may or may not have done in terms of listing

potential hazardous sites. "

Potential For Great Lead Damage

Eckel, who now works at the pesticides division of the EPA, said that

his study should send out an alarm. " If these sights are still

contaminated and haven't been paved over there is potential for great

lead damage here, " he said.

While touring several sites in Pennsylvania and Baltimore Eckel noted

that more than a few were just across from homes. One site was

actually underneath an elevated section of a freeway next to the

Orioles Stadium in Baltimore. When he tested these sites their lead

levels exceeded those allowed by federal law for industrial sites and

seven of the sites had levels exceeding the residential maximum.

" Not all the sites are necessarily contaminated, but they should all

be checked out, " Eckel said.

Large amounts of lead in a child's blood can cause brain damage,

mental retardation, behavior problems, anemia, liver and kidney

damage, hearing loss, hyperactivity, developmental delays and in

extreme cases, death. There is new evidence that lead poisoning is

harmful at blood levels once thought safe. Lower IQ scores, slower

development and more attention problems have been observed in

children with very low lead levels.

" Lead affects nearly every system of the body, " says Barbara Materna,

chief of the Occupational Lead Poisoning Prevention Program of the

California Department of Health Services. Because it can cause so

much damage, lead is the only environmental toxin for which children

are routinely screened. Lead in the bloodstream can also lead to

nerve damage and kidney failure and, in adults, infertility,

miscarriages, and an inability to produce red blood cells.

The sites that Eckel found have as high as 10 percent lead by weight

in soil. The EPA standard is 0.04 percent in residential areas and

0.1 percent in industrial areas. Some of the sites are in Boston,

Buffalo, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Jersey City, Los Angeles,

Newark, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco.

http://dailynews./h/abc/20010404/hl/lead010402_1.html

Nan

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