Federal environmental regulators plan to return to the property around St. Francis of Assisi Kitchen in Scranton this fall to assess if a century-old legacy of toxic lead processing persists in the nearby soil.
The plot at Penn Avenue and Vine Street was once the home of the Euston Lead Co., a firm founded in 1914 to manufacture white lead, then a common pigment in lead paint. It is now home to a Catholic Diocese of Scranton-run facility where daily meals are provided to the homeless and working poor.
During the plant's 45 years of operation and the dramatic fire that destroyed it, airborne pollution may have drifted down on the site or been carried by the wind to properties nearby.
Because lead contamination deposited in soil - by industry, lead paint dust or car exhaust - does not decay easily, the potential health risks can remain indefinitely unless the dirt is removed, remediated or covered.
Exposure to lead is particularly dangerous to children, whose growth, behavior and ability to learn can be affected by high lead levels in their blood. Contractors for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took photographs and reviewed maps and population data around the Euston site in 2006 and recommended that exposed soil on and near the property be tested because of the lot's proximity to schools.
The contractors found "no immediate threats or risks" at the time of the preliminary assessment, the agency said in a statement.
The EPA will reassess the site in the next fiscal year, which begins in October, and evaluate whether there are pathways "where people, especially children, could come in direct contact with contaminated soil," it said.
The evaluation could include sampling soil on the property or nearby lots.
The Euston Lead site is one of about 430 former lead factories across the country that were unknown to state and federal regulators until they were identified through historical research by environmental scientist William Eckel in 2001.
The Euston factory stopped operating in the late 1950s and a fire destroyed the building in 1960. The property changed hands several times - it was a Texaco gas station for some time - before being bought in 1984 by St. Francis of Assisi Kitchen.
Most of the former lead factories identified by Mr. Eckel, including the Euston plant, were closed and largely forgotten before modern environmental regulations were in place to limit emissions from such sites and, if necessary, mandate cleanup.
Soil testing at seven of eight sites Mr. Eckel investigated in Baltimore and Philadelphia uncovered elevated levels of lead and a "high potential" for public exposure, according to his 2001 research published in the American Journal of Public Health. He warned that the findings "should create some sense of urgency for the investigation of the other sites identified here because they may represent a significant source of exposure to lead in their local environments."
In 2004, the state Department of Health sent a fact sheet to doctors across the state mapping Pennsylvania's 53 former lead processing sites identified by Mr. Eckel and recommended they consider testing blood lead levels in children under 6 who live near the sites.
The handout marks the Euston plant in a small subset map of Scranton.
"Since most facilities operated decades ago, residents living nearby may not be aware of a potential health risk," the department wrote.
The fate of the forgotten factories was detailed in a recent series of articles by USA Today, which described regulators' stalled or inadequate efforts to test and remediate most sites identified by Mr. Eckel.
After the articles were published, Sen. Bob Casey joined other senators in urging the EPA to address the sites.
"The residual contamination poses a serious public health risk to our children who play on playgrounds and attend schools that are contaminated by the former smelter sites," he said. "It is important the sites are placed on high priority for remediation and all residents are informed."
Information about the former factory and its potential risks is not common knowledge.
The Diocese of Scranton was never told about the EPA's past or future evaluation of the site, spokesman William Genello said. It was also never told that there might be health or environmental concerns associated with the property because it once hosted a lead processing plant.
An environmental assessment of the property was performed before the kitchen bought the corner lot, he said, but only to gauge the risks of mine subsidence, which turned out to be very low.
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com