EPA Releases Draft Strategy to Reduce Lead Exposures
- Details
- Published: Monday, 17 January 2022 18:20
EPA is seeking public comment on a draft “Strategy to Reduce Lead Exposures and Disparities in U.S. Communities.” EPA’s goal is “… to strengthen public health protections and address legacy lead contamination for communities with the greatest exposures and promote environmental justice.”
Of particular importance to the Upper Columbia Valley communities, the strategy includes an objective to reduce exposure to lead in soils. EPA’s 2021 Upper Columbia Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA) identifies exposure to lead in soils as a health concern in these communities. The Valley is approximately 100 square miles (64,000 acres) east and west of the Columbia River that extends from the U.S.-Canada border to China Bend (about 40 river miles). Lead contamination in this area is linked to historic smelter operations that resulted in deposition of hazardous substances on surface soil.
As explained in the HHRA and EPA draft strategy, children and adults can be exposed to lead through incidental ingestion, e.g.—children touching their mouth with their hands, gardening, or from fine particles of soil dust that gets tracked into homes and contaminates house dust. Exposure to lead is particularly dangerous to children under six because their growing bodies absorb more lead than adults and their brains are actively developing, which makes them more susceptible to adverse health effects.
Setting New Standards and the Upper Columbia Valley
The draft EPA strategy calls for setting new soil-lead hazard standards as well as adopting new recommendations for screening sites.
EPA’s Upper Columbia HHRA considered a range of thresholds for determining potential soil-based lead cleanup in the Upper Columbia Valley. These thresholds will be used in the future Remedial Investigation Report and Feasibility Study to recommend further action that may be needed to protect public health.
Figure A summarizes the low, medium and high range the HHRA identified for EPA considering action, the number of residential and aerial decision units currently sampled that would be affected, and properties currently cleaned up as part of taking early action to address those in the “high” range.
Currently, 700 parts per million of lead is the time-critical soil cleanup action level used for properties sampled from 2014 – 2016 and offered cleanup. This is the same action level EPA used to identify additional properties within the town of Northport that received cleanup in 2020.
A new standard in an updated final EPA strategy may result in a lower threshold for action. If the new standard is stricter than the current standard, more properties in the area may fall within the range of lead levels that warrant potential cleanup. For more background on HHRA findings regarding lead in the Upper Columbia Valley, visit www.lrf.org/environment/2020-public-guide
Public Comments
To read the draft strategy and/or provide public comments, go to www.epa.gov/lead. Comments are due by March 16, 2022. This site will also post listening sessions EPA is scheduling