Critics were outraged that Turf Valley land owners did not disclose elevated arsenic levels sooner.
“It?s one thing to have contamination you know about and you can protect yourself, but it?s another thing to not know about it,” said Terry Harris, head of Cleanup Coalition, a local environmental watchdog group.
At Turf Valley, a former golf course in Ellicott City, health officials this week discovered that landowners didn?t disclose 2005 results that found arsenic levels 60 times the federal accepted level near a storage shed.
“Why not just come to us and say, ?We know there is an issue with the maintenance shed,?” said Howard Health Officer Dr. Peter Beilenson.
“If you just tell the truth, it?s so much easier to manage.”
To some, the Turf Valley contamination recalled that of Baltimore?s Swann Park, where Allied Chemical kept secret for decades the extent of arsenic from the company?s pesticide plant, according to a Baltimore City task force reviewing recently published documents.
Although local health officials say the levels aren?t a major health risk, the discovery has prompted cries for more testing and clean-up of the contaminated properties.
“It?s a toxic legacy from decades of not watching closely the ways industries manage their toxic chemicals,” said Brad Heavner, state director of activist group Environment Maryland.
Heavner questioned why developers hesitate to test land for contaminants and clean it up before building on it.
“How hard is it to cart away the bad soil?”
On golf courses, it?s been at least 30 years since greens managers used pesticides with arsenic, said Darin Bevard, a golf course consultant in the United States Golf Association.
Chemicals on home lawns and farms likely pose more of a hazard, he said.
Depending on the level of contamination, a clean-up can involve with covering the land with a few feet of soil, adding an asphalt cap or removing it, said Horatio Tablada, waste management administrator at the Maryland Department of the Environment.
QUESTION & ANSWER
Dr. Genevieve Matanoski is a professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an expert in arsenic. Matanoski was part of a research team studying Swann Park in Baltimore City in the 1970s, where high levels of arsenic were found.
How concerned should residents be if they live near or are building near a site contaminated with arsenic?
In most cases, it?s hard to get exposure to the [contaminated] soil through inhalation. When you disturb the soil, you can put some of the arsenic into the air and soil, but even then it?s hard to inhale it.
If it were open to someone playing around it like in Swann Park like children who might eat the soil, then there probably would be some risk to it.
The risk to just having it in the soil and undisturbed isn?t a problem.
What are the health risks and effects of arsenic contamination?
There are lots of health risks. At high doses, it can cause up to death, but that is usually through high [concentration] and poisoning. The other symptoms common in chronic low-grade exposure is keratosis [an overgrowth such as a callus or wart] on the skin of people who drink water contaminated with arsenic.
Most of the time you couldn?t get that from the soil where the arsenic is bonded to the soil.
What does remediation or cleanup entail and does that mean the problem is solved?
There are two ways of going at it, and the best is to remove the soil where there is contamination. Then you are done with it forever.
The other method is to cap it with an asphalt tar, because it?s unlikely any of it could be moved into the air or have access to it, unless the cap breaks. That?s why [that option] is not as good.
AT A GLANCE
Short-term, high-level inhalation exposure to arsenic dust can lead to nausea, diarrhea, nervous system disorders. Long-term inhalation exposure is associated with irritations of the skin and mucous membranes. It also has been linked to liver, lung and bladder cancer.
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
