Durham leaders amps up effort to keep lead out of its five parks; considers adding $5M to budget

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- The City of Durham is considering $5 million in the proposed budget to clean up the parks where lead was found in the soil, according to the city manager's presentation on Monday.

"Our priority is to get this remediation underway soon with local funding while waiting for decisions on state assistance for the remediation in full," Durham City Manager Wanda Page said.

Durham fences off 35 areas at 5 parks due to updated EPA guidance on safe lead levels

Areas in the City's five parks, including Walltown, Northgate, Lyon, East End and East Durham, have been closed for months as the NCDEQ assist in collecting and testing soil samples.

It's been almost a year since a Duke student found lead in the soil at the city's parks and prompted a statewide effort to fence off the contaminated areas that the City said is a result of ashes being dumped from former landfills many decades ago in public areas that later became parks.

"My dog is one thing, but we have kids out here," Dino Panagopoulos said.

The Bull City resident reacted to the additional fencing at Northgate Park on Tuesday, where according to the city's update in April, it was one of the parks that needed the most additional fencing.

"These kids are bringing down these fences and they're jumping into these areas just to get to where they used to play," Panagopoulos said. "What's going to happen to them? I'm talking about years down the road if they're exposed to contamination of lead."

In January, the EPA lowered the lead screening level from 400 to 200 ppm which allowed more areas to be examined as a safety measure.

The City of Durham said along with these additional fenced-off areas, playgrounds in these five parks will be temporarily closed for testing and will not be reopened until they receive the testing results, discuss them with the community and work with residents on a plan for reopening the playgrounds safely.

While parents such as Eli Meyerhoff want this to be remediated as soon as possible, it's the temporarily closed playgrounds that hit hard.

"We've been very worried about the lead having toxic effects on our kids," Meyerhoff said.

"I think most importantly, the cross-neighborhood organizing effort to get the City to act on this and remediate the lead as soon as possible is the most important effort. But also, myself and other parents in Northgate Park have recently formed a group to either rebuild new playgrounds or get the City to move these playgrounds into areas that are accessible. It's sad to have to wait potentially years for our kids to be able to play on playgrounds."

The City of Durham is hosting a virtual public forum on Wednesday, May 22 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. to discuss soil lead and other contaminants in five City Parks.