Federal authorities are planning to intervene after high levels of lead were discovered in Buckhead’s Peachtree Park neighborhood, according to a report in Physicians Weekly.
Elizabeth Burns, a Peachtree Park resident who said she has had health problems since moving into her home in 2016, contacted Emory University researchers after she learned rocklike materials in her yard were similar to materials the researchers found in the English Avenue neighborhood on Atlanta’s westside, according to the report by KFF Health News.
Last year, the federal Environmental Protection Agency added the English Avenue area to its Superfund National Priorities List after high levels of lead were found in the community’s soil.
The EPA has now labeled the Peachtree Park area a “Buckhead Slag Site” on its Superfund list.
Peachtree Park is a historic neighborhood adjacent to Lenox Square Mall and tucked between Piedmont Road and Ga. 400 and stretching roughly to Miami Circle in the affluent Buckhead community. It is less than 10 miles from the English Avenue area and “stands in contrast to many lead contamination sites — often in former industrial or waste disposal locations in or near low-income neighborhoods,” says the report.
The EPA began contacting “selected properties of interest” in Burns’ neighborhood in March after KFF Health News, which now operates Georgia Health News, and an attorney representing Burns began asking about the extent of the problem, according to the report.
The EPA recommended Burns’ yard for a “time-critical” removal, meaning a plan to rid the site of dangerous contaminants needed to be initiated within six months, according to the report. She is still waiting to for the cleanup to happen.
“Lead, a powerful neurotoxin particularly dangerous to children, reemerged as a major health topic in 2016 when the Flint, Michigan, water crisis came to a head,” KFF News reports.
“Besides problems associated with drinking water from lead in pipes and fixtures and exposure to old paint in homes, lead has also tainted the soil in many areas across the country, according to EPA records.”
Tim Frederick, EPA regional scientific support section chief, told KFF Health News he believes the lead at Burns’ property came from contaminated “fill dirt” used to level the land before the house was constructed in the 1950s, which is what happened on Atlanta’s westside.
