Senator asks Ohio EPA for answers on lead contamination
USA Today – A U.S. senator called for Ohio’s top environmental regulator Sunday to answer questions about lead contamination around former factory sites and what’s being done to ensure families living in fallout zones are protected.
“What’s troubling here is that many families in a neighborhood like this — families like the Sheftons — did not know that the threat existed,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. He spoke at a news conference outside the Cleveland home that Ken Shefton’s family recently vacated near the former site of the Tyroler Metals lead smelter.
Brown sent a letter Sunday to Scott Nally, director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, expressing concern about the lead-poisoning risks posed by soil around Tyroler Metals and 16 other former lead smelting sites in Ohio featured in a USA TODAY investigation last month.
“It is critical that families living near the other smelters around the state are made aware of possible health concerns,” Brown said in his letter, which also seeks an update from the agency on the status of cleanup efforts at the Ohio sites and whether there will be any action to address contamination around the Tyroler Metals site.
