The past can sometimes be hard to forget, especially for one southeast Kansas town. Traces of a former zinc smelter plant can still be found in the City of Weir, even after it went out of service in the 1920’s. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment began looking into the environmental impact of the former zinc smelter site back in 2004. “That’s when the state went out and looked at different areas where there were former smelters and they did different sampling of the soil and the sediment and the water, to see if there were any impacts,” said Liz Blackburn-Vigil, EPA Remedial Project Manager. KDHE found elevated levels of lead in the soil and soon the EPA got involved to help clean up affected properties. To date 54 have been remediated, but work continues to be done to solve the issue city-wide.
Source: KSNF/KODE
