Soil Samples taken at three locations in River Rouge have higher than normal lead levels

According to the City of River Rouge, soil samples were taken at three locations on the east side of the City last summer. The locations were Belanger Park, John Jakubowski Park, and the Great Lakes Athletic Fields. The findings were that each location had levels of lead that were above the 400 ppm level. According to the information from River Rouge, it stated, "Several of the samples, however, exceeded The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy's (EGLE) most restrictive residential direct contact criteria for Lead which is a common by-product of coal processing and heavy industrial operations."

During the River Rouge City Council meeting on March 7th, Mayor William Campbell stated that Belanger Park would be open only for fishing. No reason for the restriction was given at that time.

After several conversations with local environmental community groups to get a better understanding of what was happening at these locations, the next step was to get some background on the situation. Questions were compiled and sent to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy's (EGLE) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March and a conversation was requested with the City of River Rouge. Once a meeting was held between the City of River Rouge, the EPA, EGLE and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday, April 6th we got an understanding of what the results were.

From the responses from the multi-agency and follow-up conversation with Paul Owens, Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE), the samplings were done around June of 2022 in anticipation of the demolition of the Rouge DTE Power Plant and potential impact from prior industrial activities in the area. At certain individual sampling locations at all three parks, metals were detected within the surficial top two inches of soil above the Part 201 generic residential criteria; Jakubowski Park had one reading that was higher than the residential criteria level for lead and that area was remediated around October 2022. (The contaminated soil was removed and the area was retested to ensure that the level was below the residential criteria.)

With respect to Great Lakes Athletic Field, one third of the samplings were above the residential criteria level. The River Rouge High School Baseball team normally has their games there, but thus far, they will have to play their games at another field. Unlike Belanger Park, as of April 27th, there were no signs or fencing instructing people to stay out of the area.

At Belanger Park, six of nine surficial soil samples exceeded the residential direct contact criterion for Lead. The presence of Lead exceeding the above-noted residential land use criterion required that the City take measures to prevent potential exposure to these near surface soils pending further investigation to verify these initial findings. Therefore, the City restricted access to this specific area as evidenced by the fencing (orange) and signage (Park Closed).

It is understood that further samplings must be done and an action plan for cleaning up the soil must be developed. The City of River Rouge is diligently pursuing funding for further testing and will develop a timeline once funding is secured

From learning about the lead in the water in Flint, we wanted to know what are the potential health effects for people who have been using these parks in the past and how can those health effects be evaluated?

The response from the multi-agency as of April 12th, is that MDHHS has not offered any conclusions about whether using these parks in the past or future could increase your risk of health effects. They stated, too much lead exposure can increase the risk of a variety of harmful health effects, particularly developmental effects in children. You can find out if you have been exposed to lead by getting a blood test. However, these tests cannot tell you where you have been exposed to lead. In the meantime, people who have used the parks can protect themselves by taking their shoes off before entering their home and washing their hands before eating. You can find more information at: https://www.michigan.gov/mileadsafe/learn/soil. More follow-up is needed with the MDHHS to determine what steps the residents of River Rouge and visitors to those three locations need to take to keep them safe and healthy.

As summer is quickly approaching and more community members will be outside and possibly wanting to visit these popular locations, more conversations will need to be had with the multi-agency as pertinent information is shared.