Lead cleanup wrapping up on Southside, but other areas may have to wait

Workers remove soil contaminated with lead from the front yard of a Southside Chattanooga residence off of Mitchell Avenue last week.

Most of the lead-tainted soil found in more than 60 yards in Chattanooga’s Southside in 2011 has been removed, according to environmental officials.

But high levels of the toxic heavy metal detected in seven other city neighborhoods may remain because of federal budget woes.

The Environmental Protection Agency has been removing lead-tainted topsoil from the yards of 68 homes in the 1600 and 1700 blocks of Mitchell and Read avenues and along Carr Street since dangerous levels were reported in soil in October 2011.

The threshold for lead removal that EPA uses is 400 parts per million; in some of the Southside yards tested, those lead numbers topped 920 parts per million.