Zebulon town officials are pushing for better communication from the state weeks after lead was discovered at a park.
The town closed Gill Street Park last month after testing showed the presence of lead in the soil in concentrations above the NCDEQ residential standards.
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The park, built on a landfill in the 1960s, also has less than one foot of soil covering waste and shards of glass, metal, brick and porcelain, according to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.
Zebulon Parks and Recreation Director Sheila Long said the town followed the guidance of an environmental firm and kept the park partially open after the first round of testing -- in 2024 -- found lead.
She told WRAL News on Wednesday that the state needs to do a better job of communicating the ongoing risks of development over landfills.
"What we have seen is that in 10 years is just a letter that says, 'Hey, there's a pre-regulated landfill in your community.' It doesn't necessarily provide any guidance that you should go and start doing soil testing, or there might be a public health issue that you want to take into consideration," she said.
DEQ records show a single letter sent to the town of Zebulon in 2017. A DEQ spokeswoman said at the beginning at 2026, the state began sending letters again to county managers to let them know about landfills in their area. She did not say how detailed those letters were.
Gill Street Park -- with a playground, basketball court, picnic tables, grass and landscaping -- is one of 33 developments atop old landfills in Wake County. Sites like these can contain elevated levels of lead, as they were established before modern regulations designed to prevent toxic substances from seeping into the soil.
The park is owned by the town, and the town is responsible for management and maintenance.
A spokesperson for the town, Heather Louise Finch, said education would help municipalities make better decisions about testing and remediation projects going forward, and it wouldn't just help out Zebulon.
"You have folks who are unaware that their property is contaminated," Finch said. "This is a statewide issue. This is not just a town of Zebulon issue. So it matters because people need to know. They need to know what's in their yard."
Lead in parks a statewide problem
In Durham, it could cost more then $10 million to mitigage high lead levels in soil at five parks. WRAL has reported extensively on the "alarmingly high" levels of lead in the soil at some Durham parks, as discovered in 2022 by Duke University researchers.
Greensboro's City Council recently voted to "cap and cover" the soil in its Bingham Park at an estimated $12.4 million.
