High Lead Levels Found at Weedon Island, Florida, a Property Listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places

Lead may originate from a St. Petersburg gun club, the site of a $23 million lead cleanup

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., March 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Tests have revealed elevated lead levels at five locations on Weedon Island, a nature preserve located on Tampa Bay near St. Petersburg, said the Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County. How did a nature preserve on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places become polluted with lead? It all starts with a gun club. Regulators say that 60 years of target practice at The Skyway Gun Club in St. Petersburg has contaminated the soil and water at Sawgrass Lake with about 10,000 tons of spent lead shot.

Sawgrass Lake and an adjacent lead-soaked canal empty into Riviera Bay, which drains into Weedon Island on Tampa Bay. Engineers working for the EPA found 1800 times the EPA benchmark for lead in sediment at the gun club and more than five times the EPA drinking water standard of 15 parts per billion (ppb) in surface waters near the range.

In 2000, the EPA ordered an emergency assessment of Sawgrass Lake because the area included a park where children play, a residential area, and private drinking wells. The site is now part of a $23 million lead cleanup, managed by Southwest Florida Water Management District.

The main goal of the cleanup is to reduce pollutant discharges to Tampa Bay, which the EPA lists as an impaired water body. Thanks to a Florida state law (Statute 790.333), initiated by the National Rifle Association in 2004, this goal may never be reached even after spending $23 million. The law allows the gun club to evade cleaning up lead on its property, so lead will continue to pollute the canal and surface waters, which empty into Weedon Island and Tampa Bay. In addition, the law also makes it a first degree misdemeanor for any state or local official to enforce any environmental law against a gun club in the state of Florida.

Health Effects of Lead Poisoning

In infants and children, lead poisoning can cause permanent brain damage and even death. Children with lead poisoning can experience learning disabilities, delayed physical growth, lower IQ, or behavioral problems. In adults, high levels of lead exposure can cause kidney and reproductive problems, high blood pressure, muscle and joint pain. The EPA action level for lead in drinking water is 15 mg/L for adults, but the EPA warns citizens that even very low-level lead exposures (<5 mg/L) can cause neurological, learning, and IQ deficits in children and infants.

The Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (CLPPP), at the Florida Department of Health, has implemented strategies to reduce childhood lead poisoning in Florida. But the agency only screens children living in Pinellas county zip codes that contain older homes made with lead paint. It does not screen for lead poisoning of children living in zip codes next to the lead cleanup site or for children at the nearby Sawgrass Lake Elementary School. Julie Kurlfink, manager of CLPPP, was unaware of the dangerous lead levels at Sawgrass Lake, or that the lead-soaked Lake empties into a canal, which runs past an elementary school. The CLPPP has refused to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that shows rates of childhood lead poisoning in Pinellas County by zip code.

Meanwhile, over a 10-year period, Florida Department of Health data shows Pinellas County as having one of the highest levels of childhood lead poisoning in the state.

SOURCE Environmental Citizens, LLC