When people see the small rectangular plots cordoned off next to Vanessa and Kenneth Robinson’s house, they sometimes ask what they are growing.
Takeaways
- Lead, the most common contaminant in urban soil, lurks in two-thirds of Kansas City’s vacant lots. Kansas City, Kansas, also has high levels of lead in some urban neighborhoods.
- No amount of lead is safe for humans. It can cause serious and lasting health problems.
- Leaders on both sides of the state line are working to clean up contaminated urban lots owned by the cities.
But the sprouts of green aren’t a garden. They are a laboratory for testing and treating soil. Three years ago the Robinsons learned that the ground surrounding their northeast Kansas City, Kansas, home is riddled with lead.
The toxic metal could have seeped into the soil from the remains of burned-down houses buried beneath nearby vacant lots. It could have come from the shuttered gas station — now a liquor store — a few blocks away. Or perhaps the lead is the result of years of leaded gasoline spilling onto the ground or lead-based paint slowly chipping off houses.
Even if the reason isn’t clear, the consequences are. Without costly cleanup work, the Robinsons can’t let their grandchildren play in the yard when they come to visit. And they can’t have a garden…