[CPEO-BIF] "Ghost" lead factories across the U.S.

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

A government's failure to protect

Government regulators were warned a decade ago about more than 400  
forgotten lead smelting firms that operated in the 1930s to 1960s and  
may have deposited dangerous levels of lead contamination in nearby  
soil. Yet the EPA and state officials have left families and children  
in harm's way, doing little to assess the danger around many sites,  
USA TODAY's 14-month investigation found.

Read the entire series at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/ 
smelting-lead-contamination

Part I:
Long-gone lead factories leave poisons in nearby yards

By Alison Young
USA TODAY
April 25, 2012

Ken Shefton is furious about what the government knew eight years ago  
and never told him - that the neighborhood where his five sons have  
been playing is contaminated with lead.

Their Cleveland home is a few blocks from a long-forgotten factory  
that spewed toxic lead dust for about 30 years.

The Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators clearly knew  
of the danger. They tested soil throughout the neighborhood and  
documented hazardous levels of contamination. They never did a  
cleanup. They didn't warn people living nearby that the tainted soil  
endangers their children.

...

More than a decade ago, government regulators received specific  
warnings that the soil in hundreds of U.S. neighborhoods might be  
contaminated with dangerous levels of lead from factories operating  
in the 1930s to 1960s, including the smelter near Shefton's house,  
Tyroler Metals, which closed around 1957.

Despite warnings, federal and state officials repeatedly failed to  
find out just how bad the problems were. A 14-month USA TODAY  
investigation has found that the EPA and state regulators left  
thousands of families and children in harm's way, doing little to  
assess the danger around many of the more than 400 potential lead  
smelter locations on a list compiled by a researcher from old  
industry directories and given to the EPA in 2001.

...

For the entire first article, see
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-04-19/smelting-lead- 
contamination-government-failure/54399578/1

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

_______________________________________________
Brownfields mailing list
Brownfields@lists.cpeo.org
http://lists.cpeo.org/listinfo.cgi/brownfields-cpeo.org