Representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency held a meet-and-greet with Evansville residents Monday night amid ongoing efforts to clean up lead and arsenic in parts of the city.
The EPA first started cleaning up around homes in Jacobsville Superfund site in 2010.
The agency says the contamination probably came from foundries operating in Jacobsville during Civil War times.
But EPA Remedial Project Manager Jena Sleboda Braun says the EPA realized after a few tests that the problem wasn’t just confined to that one neighborhood.
"We found high levels of lead so we did step-out sampling from there and we got to an area about four and a half square miles of Evansville," Sleboda Braun says.
The agency is now focused on testing and cleaning neighborhoods further south of the original Superfund site, like Wheeler, Haynie's Corner, and Tepe Park.
"We'd always heard Jacobsville so we didn't event think about it including our home," says Sandy Hoy, who lives with her husband, Phil, just one block away from one of the affected areas.
She says the EPA tested their home last year and found high levels of lead and arsenic. She says the agency told her it plans to clean up around the home within the next few weeks.
Their home will be among the 400 the EPA hopes to clean by the end of the year. That's in addition to another 300 the agency hopes to sample.
The cleaning process, done with the homeowner's permission, consists of removing six to 18 inches of contaminated dirt, then putting clean dirt and sod back in. The whole process takes three to four days, with no cost to the homeowner.
"[We're] glad to see this interest in cleaning up our local environment," Sandy says.
"Especially for the kids, for the children, because they get out and play in the dirt," Phil adds. "And for the future because....some day that house will be sold to somebody else and if they have kids, they're going to want to know."