$40K lead contamination cleanup at Community Building to begin

Don Cole, left, watches his son, Dean Cole, both of Lawrence, take target practice Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008 at the Douglas County Rifle/Pistol Club Range at the Community Building, 115 W. 11th St.

After dangerously high levels of toxic lead were discovered in a public recreation building, a nearly $40,000 cleanup will soon be underway.

Since the lead contamination was discovered earlier this year, the primarily concrete room in the basement of the Community Building, 115 W. 11th St., has been locked up. After temporary walls are put up around the area, professional decontamination is set to begin on Monday, Dec. 26.

The room will be almost entirely stripped down as part of the cleanup, said Mark A. Hecker, assistant director of the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department.

“So it’ll be everything from removing all the surfaces in there — from carpet to wood to the traps — then cleaning it and repainting it if needed for sealing purposes,” Hecker said. “It’ll basically leave us with a bare-naked room.”

The city has hired Titan Environmental Services to decontaminate the room. In addition to lead decontamination, the company does cleanup of other hazards such as asbestos, black mold and methamphetamine labs. The process will cost the city about $39,000 and the cleanup portion of the process is expected to take about week, Hecker said.

Since 1940, the approximately 1,400-square-foot space in the basement of the building — which was originally an armory — housed a gun range that has left behind extremely high levels of lead contamination. The lead contamination built up as bits from lead bullets accumulated as patrons at the range fired their weapons.

“It’s been there forever, since it was a National Guard Armory,” Hecker said. “That activity in that space is what causes that lead contamination.”

Most recently, the Douglas County Rifle and Pistol Club leased the space from the city and operated the gun range. In February, the club was ordered to cease operations after city leaders realized its location violated the federal Gun Free School Zones Act, enacted in 1990.

In May, tests found the presence of lead in some areas that was 17,000 times greater than what is considered safe by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The shooting range did not have a filtration system, and used only a vent that led to the building’s parking lot as a means of air circulation. After the lead levels were discovered, those involved with the club have either declined or not responded to requests from the Journal-World to comment on the operations.

Lead is toxic if ingested, and is especially harmful for infants and children. Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to affect IQ, ability to pay attention and academic achievement, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The effects of lead exposure cannot be corrected.

Hecker said once the decontamination is complete, the city will test the former shooting range and adjacent areas to make sure the space is safe. He said, at that point, conversations about what the room could be used for — perhaps a golf range or stationary cycling spin room — will begin.

“We’ve discussed a number of programming ideas in there,” Hecker said. “You turn the programmers loose with an empty space, they come up with all kinds of cool stuff. A lot of it, we’ll have to put some additional money into it to make it publicly usable for something else.”