This is the latest installment in our Main Street NC series from the WUNC Politics Podcast. We're visiting communities across the state to hear from local leaders about the issues and challenges they’re facing, from beach erosion to healthcare access.
Soil contamination from long-ago trash incinerators has prompted Durham to close five of its parks for the past two years, and they’re still not close to a final solution to the issue.
Soil testing in 2024 found potential lead contamination in the parks, and the city closed off playgrounds, athletic fields and other amenities to do additional testing and come up with a clean-up plan.
Two of the five parks are in East Durham. Ashley Scott works on a bike program serving kids in the area, and he says it can be difficult to find parks and public spaces that are open for young people.
“If this area wasn't so dense that it supported five elementary schools, that would be one thing, but the fact that you have so many kids here and there is no public place to play,” he said, “and the city and everybody's like, ‘we need to get stuff for these kids to do so they're not on the streets and they're not committing crimes.’”
Lead exposure can cause brain damage in children, so Durham leaders have taken an extra cautious approach as they await further test results from the state Department of Environmental Quality.
The delay is frustrating to Scott and Gregory Williams, who serves on the Durham Recreation Advisory Commission.
“General bureaucracy is sometimes difficult to deal with,” Williams said. “You've got a bunch of different feasibility studies, and things that are really slowing up the process. And it would be great if we had some sort of alternative method for children, especially in underserved communities, to be able to have some sort of recreation, especially by the summertime.”
Durham officials say the cleanup at East Durham and East End parks could take much longer. And Scott worries that the soil contamination might not stop at the park boundaries. He points to Burton Park, which sits between an elementary school and the McDougald Terrace public housing complex. The playground there is open, but orange mesh fencing there blocks off a creek that’s contaminated by the nearby Brenntag chemical plant.
“The creek is contaminated, and that new playground they built sits right above that creek,” Scott said. “So the idea that these spaces are contaminated, but we feel like the contamination should stop at the property line, I think that needs to be reevaluated.”
Homeowners near the contaminated areas are worried too. The nonprofit group Toxic Free NC has been arranging soil testing workshops for neighbors to bring soil samples for free testing. Those tests are still in process.
East Durham has environmental challenges in part because it’s a mix of industrial facilities and older, low-income neighborhoods.
This part of the Bull City was first developed more than a century ago around a cotton mill that now houses the Brenntag chemical plant.
That mill village history means it’s a neighborhood that also has its own downtown. The corner of Angier Avenue and Driver Street is home to historic storefronts and an array of small businesses, from a popular sandwich shop to hair salons.
Stacy Ramos picked the location to open the East Durham Sweet Shoppe in 2022. It’s become a popular spot for people of all ages to head for treats like ice cream and chocolate-covered graham crackers. Ramos is bullish on the future of the East Durham business district.
“East Durham is sweet because you have everything you need and don't realize it until you get over here and go, ‘wow, there's three or four different types of restaurants, and you can do shopping and grocery shopping and grab some sweets,'” she said. “So it's definitely up and coming.”
The community in East Durham is hopeful the city will invest more in their side of town, particularly in a speedy cleanup of the contaminated parks.
To learn more about the testing and cleanup process, WUNC News spoke with Wade Walcutt, Durham’s director of parks and recreation.
NOTE: This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Tell me about how the contamination issues in these parks were discovered a couple years back.
“I think it was about 2023 when we became fully aware of what the potential impacts were on these parks, and since that time, we've taken that information and built on that science, seeing how we can better understand and get a comprehensive view of what we're up against and what are the best paths forward.”
What's the original source of the contamination?
“Four out of the five parks had some sort of trash incinerator site on their property at one point in time. And the science and the knowledge that society had at that time was, ‘what do we do with trash?’ Well, burning it was an acceptable and standard practice at that time.”
Do you have a sense for why past Durham leaders chose to put parks at these particular locations, given the messy previous uses?
“Park land came into being because it was land that, generally speaking, was not attractive geologically, or it wasn't land that folks could build on, whether it's residential or commercial. Oftentimes throughout the country, those then became open space or dedicated park spaces.”
What's the status of the soil testing taking place at these locations?
“It has been a long process, but something that we know we want to get right, as opposed to doing it quickly. We have a good partner with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. They are leading this process. They have a pre-regulatory landfill program. There's nearly 700 sites around the state of North Carolina, and so within that program, they have a very regimented set of steps that they take for each site. It’s a full study of each site to understand where contaminants exist, what kinds of contaminants are present, how much there is, and how much may be moving underground.
“This information is going to be used to decide what cleanup actions are needed, or how the site can be safely used in the future, whether there are any land restrictions are necessary or not.”
Do you have a timeline from DEQ of when they intend to get this information back to you?
“We hope to get all the summary reports by March.”
Do you have any sense for how long it might take before these parks are back open to the public in some capacity?
“Depending on what the need is for each park, there would likely be a planning phase of ‘what are the priorities for that community? What does that park want to be now if we have to make some changes?’ Planning usually takes a year. Construction maybe takes a year, just depending on the scope. It's really hard to say without this kind of information available.”
With the five affected parks offline for such an extended period of time, what does the state of parks access look like in these neighborhoods?
“One of the great things about Durham is the amount of parks that we have, and how accessible a lot of our parks are. We have 66 parks total, so that leaves us 61 that are not impacted. We realized that four out of these five parks have schools nearby that have unaffected playgrounds, and so we're working with them right now to make sure that they can communicate that there's public access to these playgrounds after school and on the weekends for folks to use.”
Listen to the full conversation on the WUNC Politics Podcast. And listeners in Durham and the Triangle can check out WUNC News on the radio at 91.5 FM.
Three things to do in East Durham
Durham Green Flea Market: Vendors at the weekend markets sells everything from jewelry to fresh produce, and the site also hosts periodic food truck rodeos.
Design Bank: Interior designer Craven Miller has renovated East Durham's historic bank building into a showroom for unique vintage and modern furnishings, open on weekends.
Ideal’s: The sandwich shop is so popular that it attracts long lines and often sells out, even though it’s only open a few hours each day. The bread is made in-house.
