Special Reports

Secrets In The Soil, Cleaning Up

Click Here To Read The Soil Report Issued To The City -PDF File

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) ― They are not scientists, chemists, or geologists but rather Fort Lauderdale residents who have long suspected the soil in their backyards, where their children play and where they hang their clothes out to dry, maybe contaminated with toxic chemicals.

Tonight, many of those residents are anxious to learn the results of recent air and soil sampling taken during an extensive remediation of streets. Over the past month, our Chief Investigative Reporter Michele Gillen has been in the streets to witness efforts by the City of Fort Lauderdale to "dig up the dirt"….as we continue to investigate "Secrets in the Soil ". The focus of our investigation is a neighborhood named Durrs that sits in the shadow of a former city incinerator that decades ago reportedly spewed snowstorms of ash. Toxins, including dioxin, lead and arsenic have been indentified in the soil beneath city owned street and land. The finding resulting in this latest remediation effort.

As laundry twisted in a light breeze on a line draped across one backyard, just feet away, a city lot, and a stretch of right- a-ways have been torn up to remove and replace more than 27 hundred tons of what officials call "affected soils" Dirt and land that abut private yards and homes that residents worry may also contain heavy metals. This is a clean up approve by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Sitting with his neighbors, homeowner Rolando Kipsgaards was upset.
"Why is it that the city is only going ahead and doing just their property that they own?" He asked aloud, "We are sucking up the dust that they are digging up to make their properties worth value So they can go ahead and go ahead and improve their land, but the rest of us we are still suffering, we are still going to have to deal with all the effects of what's going on ."

Since documenting soil contamination here years ago, the State of Florida has warned Durrs residents to avoid inhaling any dust. Residents observing the evacuation say they don't know whether it's safe for them to breathe the air. Air monitors have been placed by the company hired to do the cleanup at different sites within the radius of the digging.

Day after day, resident Alfonso Hicks watched the evacuations and said he was worried and confused; wondering how is it that the contamination is only on city property and not inches away on private property?

And now CBS4 news has obtained early preliminary test results of samples of the excavated dirt, along with an overview of air sample analysis.

In three sampling locations…."Elevated concentrations of arsenic, barium and/or lead were detected above the state of Florida's soil clean up target levels" in soil beginning at the corner "of the private residence...."

For the full report click here.

Meanwhile the City and residents await residents on dioxin testing which are expected to take several for months. In a statement provided to CBS-4 news, a city spokesman noted that "Private property has been tested. The Department of Environmental Protection tested private property in 2004 and 2006. The Department of health analyzed those results along with subsequent data and made no recommendation for remediation on private property."

"The DEP has stated that they plan to conduct additional soil tests on private properties this summer. Once completed, the DEP and the DOH will review those results and determine what, if any, additional corrective actions are necessary on private properties.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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