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Lead-tainted Westside neighborhood becomes Superfund site
By Andy Miller | Georgia Health News
A westside Atlanta neighborhood
contaminated with lead has been added to
the EPA’s Superfund priority list, freeing up
more federal funding for long-term cleanup.
The English Avenue area is one of 12 sites
across the nation that the Environmental
Protection Agency added to its Superfund
National Priorities List (NPL), the agency
announced Thursday.
More than 2,000 properties in the EPA
target zone are being investigated for lead in
the soil.
Out of 951 properties already sampled
there, about 40 percent, or 377, had levels
of lead above 400 parts per million, the EPA
threshold that calls for cleanup. The EPA has
said 116 have been remediated, meaning the
situation has been corrected.
The EPA and local officials held a news
conference Friday at a neighborhood church,
and made a pitch for more tenants and
landowners in the area to agree to testing of
their soil for lead.
The overall cost of the cleanup is now
estimated at $50 million, and the work is
projected to be finished in 2028.
Rosario FFernandez, who was among
the first residents of the area whose soil was
analyzed, emphasized the dangers of lead
poisoning at the press conference, held at
New Life Covenant Church.
“We’ve got to get those kids tested,” said
FFernandez, who has become a leader in
educating community residents about the
contamination.
Using Georgia Department of
Public FFealth data, The Atlanta Journal-
Constitution previously found historical
evidence of lead poisoning in children in ZIP
codes in the area.
The federal Superffind program has the
responsibility of identifying dangerously
polluted sites around the nation, cleaning
them up and, when possible, holding
polluters financially accountable. There are
thousands of Superffind sites, but a relatively
small percentage are on the NPL, meaning
they are especially dangerous.
Lead, a naturally occurring element that
has been mined and used by humans for
thousands of years, is a powerful neurotoxin
that’s especially dangerous for children. In
recent decades, as lead’s full dangers have
become clear, governments and industries
have sought to drastically reduce its presence
in the environment.
The NPL designation of the English
Avenue area “means that it is one of the most
contaminated sites in the U.S.,” said Eri
Saikawa, an Emory University scientist who
led a student team that uncovered the lead
problem in 2018.
The Emory findings kicked off an EPA
investigation that ultimately unearthed large
amounts of slag in the area.
Slag, which can contain lead, is a
byproduct of smelting. The west Atlanta area
contained foundries, and many years ago,
14 APRIL 2022 | Id
Rosario Hernandez (from left)
and her granddaughters Ava
Booker, Aniyah Royal, and
Aryanna Maymi Booker, look
for pieces of slag on the vacant
lot next to her home in 2019.
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he added.
Jim Woolford, a former director of the
EPA Office of Superffind Remediation and
Technology Innovation, said in a statement
that “updates to the NPL frequently go
unnoticed, but this is a critical step in the
Superffind cleanup process as it sets the stage
for further EPA actions to protect the health
and well-being of communities, states, and
tribes adversely affected by releases from
these sites.”
Woolford is a member of the
Environmental Protection Network, a group
of more than 550 former EPA career staff
and confirmation-level appointees from
Democratic and Republican administrations.
There are problems elsewhere in
Atlanta, Saikawa said. PFer research team, in
conjunction with government agencies, has
found slag in some yards in these areas.
And in south Atlanta, they also found
high levels of lead in the soil near theTAV
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people used slag to fill in low-lying areas in
the neighborhood.
Saikawa told GFFN that she believes
some properties outside the investigation
zone also have substantial amounts of lead in
their soil.
An EPA official said the agency isn’t
ruling out a further expansion of the
investigation zone. “The data will drive the
decision to expand,” said Leigh Lattimore.
The NPL sites represent significant
human health and environmental risks, the
EPA says.
“No community deserves to have
contaminated sites near where they live,
work, play, and go to school. Nearly 2 out
of 3 of the sites being proposed or added to
FFoldings metal processing plant, a situation
that the EPA is investigating.
Even at low levels, lead can damage
children’s brains, lowering intelligence and
weakening their powers of self-control and
concentration, researchers have found. At
higher levels, lead can affect growth, and
it can replace iron in the blood, leading to
anemia and fatigue.
There is no safe level of lead exposure, the
Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention says.
The hazards of lead were highlighted in
2014, after drinking water for the city of
Flint, Mich., was contaminated with lead,
exposing thousands of children to the hazard.
A bill in the Georgia Legislature,
sponsored by Rep. Katie Dempsey
(R-Rome), would lower the level of lead
in children’s blood that would trigger state
regulatory action, which includes testing,
warning letters and required remediation.
That poisoning level would be put at the
CDC guideline of 3.5 micrograms per
deciliter, much lower than Georgia’s current
threshold, which experts say leaves many
children at risk. un
the priorities
list are in
overburdened
or underserved
communities,”
said EPA
Administrator
Michael S.
Regan in a
statement this
week.
The
investigation
zone, a low-
income, mostly minority community near
Mercedes-Benz Stadium, is bordered by
Wheeler Street, Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard,
south Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and
Northside Drive.
An infrastructure bill recently passed
by Congress provided $3.5 billion for such
cleanups.
Carlton Waterhouse, deputy assistant
administrator for the EPA’s Office of Land
and Emergency Management, said at the
press conference that about 73 million
Americans live within three miles of a
Superffind site. Many are people of color and
low income, he said.
“Environmental justice is a top priority,”
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