EPA to clean up lead in yard soil in N.J.

The Environmental Protection Agency will begin digging up dangerous lead contamination this month around a dozen homes in New Jersey, part of one of the largest state efforts yet to re-examine health risks posed by soil near hundreds of old factory locations identified by a USA TODAY investigation. Regulators in at least 13 other states have been conducting investigations as a result of the newspaper’s “Ghost Factories” series, which revealed the EPA and state agencies had done little over 10 years to examine the toxic fallout left behind by many old lead factories that operated mostly in the 1930s-1960s . In Edison, N.J., the EPA will spend up to $1.26 million to replace the soil in local yards. State regulators also have asked the EPA to clean up contamination at a Newark condo complex built atop another factory site.

- USA Today