More than a decade after the Environmental Protection Agency named Evansville’s city center among the most contaminated in the country, cleanup is still underway.
The EPA estimates it’s removed toxic amounts of lead from around half of the city’s contaminated residential properties. Around 2,000 more properties still need to be cleaned.
“Over the next few years, EPA will conduct additional sampling and continue the design and cleanup phase,” a prepared EPA statement said.
The agency will host an open-house on Monday to answer residents’ questions about the ongoing cleanup at the Central Library from 4-7 p.m.
The contaminated area encompasses roughly 4.5 square miles surrounding downtown. Much of that area is now residential. But a century ago, it housed manufacturing facilities that polluted the area with lead, arsenic and other poisons. One such factory produced lead shot pellets on the property that is now Deaconess Hospital.
The lead was discovered in the soil of Evansville’s Jacobsville neighborhood in 2000. It soon became clear that the contamination was severe – and spread far beyond one neighborhood. “Windborne particulates from manufacturing operations resulted in widespread contamination throughout the community,” according to the EPA. In 2004, the EPA added the Evansville to its National Priority List of sites that require extensive cleanup.
The cleanup began in 2007. Each summer, the EPA goes from house to house in the contaminated area, testing yards for lead.
There is no “safe” level of lead exposure, according to the World Health Organization. However the United States has standards for acceptable lead levels in the soil, water and air.
“Those standards are very conservative,” said Barry Sneed, a spokesman for IDEM.
When a property tests positive for unsafe levels of lead, the EPA will remove the first two feet of soil from the entire property, replacing it with clean soil and sod. “I’m so excited about this,” said Jessica Joyner, a southside home owner whose property was being cleaned last week. “Anytime you hear the word ‘lead’ you associate it as something that can be harmful, especially to children. So for them to tell me I have contaminated soil, and I have small children, I took it seriously.”
Lead is harmful to anyone, but it is especially damaging to growing children. In the long term, children exposed to lead can have decreased bone and muscle growth, damage to their nervous system, developmental delays, and speech and language problems. “The biggest problem with lead is once the damage is done, it’s irreversible,” said Joe Griss, the administrator of the Vanderburgh County Health Department. “Once it’s caught, all we can do is stop it from getting worse.”
The health department tests children for lead for free. And each year, roughly 20 children in the Evansville area test positive for unhealthy levels of lead in their blood.
Children are often exposed to the lead through lead-based paint in older homes, Griss said. Any home built before 1978 may have lead in the paint.
Many are also exposed though lead in the soil, he said.
The EPA anticipates the Evansville cleanup will continue through at least 2020.