Community Fact Sheet

June 2007

American Street Tannery Site

...in pursuit of good health
Edward G. Rendell, Governor
Public Comment
Health Consultation
Calvin B. Johnson, M.D., M.P.H., Secretary of Health

Background
The Pennsylvania Department of Health (PADOH) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry (ATSDR) have prepared a public comment health consultation (HC) to
determine whether the American Street Tannery site poses a public health risk to the community.
The purpose of this fact sheet is to summarize the findings of the public comment version of the
Inside this fact sheet:
HC.
How We Evaluate Health 2 • A HC is a document that examines hazardous substances, health outcomes, and community
Risks concerns at a site to determine whether people could be harmed from coming into contact
General Recommendations to 2 with chemicals from the site.
Limit Exposure to Lead in • Comments or questions about the HC will be accepted for 30 days from the date of
Soil
publication. A final health consultation will be prepared addressing all questions and/or
Community Concerns 3 comments submitted during the public comment period.
• A copy of the HC will be available for review on the United States Environmental
Recommendations 3 Protection Agency’s (EPA) website: www.epaosc.net/americanstreettannery
You may also obtain a copy of the report by calling (717) 346-3283.
Conclusions 3

Map with Sampling Locations 4 About the Site

The site is located in the Northern Liberties section of the City of Philadelphia, bordered by
What’s Next? 4
West George (to the north), North Bodine (to the west), North American (to the east), and West
Contact Information 4 Wildey Streets (to the south).
• Metals, including lead, chromium and arsenic were detected in surface soil samples at the
American Street Tannery Site. Other industrial chemicals that were detected include poly-
cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
• Contaminated soils on the site were cleaned up by the EPA under a Removal Action in
1987. Following a fire in 1990, when trespassers spilled PCBs on the site, a second EPA
removal action took place to clean up the soil. The northern portion of the American Street
Tannery site remained vacant until it was redeveloped under the Pennsylvania Department
of Environmental Protection's land recycling program. The PADEP concluded that the
northern portion of the site, that was developed under the land recycling program, meets
Special Industrial Area Standards based on pathway elimination with institutional (deed
notices) and engineering controls (paved parking lot) in place.
• Another property, adjacent to the American Street Tannery Site and currently known as
Liberty Lands Community Park, was also the location of a former tannery. ATSDR
prepared a health consultation in February 1997 on the Liberty Lands Community Park.
The HC concluded that the soils do not represent a health threat and the consumption of
vegetables grown in the soils does not represent a health threat.
Page 2 American Street Tannery Site June 2007

How We Evaluate Health Risks

If you are exposed, there
are three ways a chemical
can get into your body.
These are:
The potential for harmful health effects is related to the dose and the exposure pathway. Dose is
the amount of a chemical taken into the body over time and how it is absorbed. Dose is based on
how long and to what amount of the chemical people were exposed. Then we determine the risk
for cancer and other health risks and the likelihood that the exposure caused disease are
determined.

• Conservative health guidelines and assumptions in order to reach the most protective
Breathing air that has the
conclusions and recommendations are used.
chemical in it.

• It is often very difficult to determine if someone has gotten sick from a site, even if they have
been exposed.
◊ Past exposures are often hard to determine.
◊ There are often other factors, acting alone or together, that might increase someone’s
risk of illness such as exposure to cigarette smoke, family history, age, sex, diet, or
their occupation.
Eating or drinking
something with the ◊ Some illnesses such as cancer are known to have a long latency period, sometimes
chemical in or on it.
decades. Some illnesses can be caused by changes that occurred in cells a long time
ago.

• Harmful health effects are also related to routes of exposure, or exposure pathways. You
have to come into contact with the chemical and it has to have gotten into your body. If the
exposure pathway is incomplete (e.g. no human contact), there will be no exposure. There
Touching something that
has the chemical in or on
are primarily three routes of exposure, they are:
it.
◊ Ingestion (swallowing),
◊ Inhalation or respiration (lungs), and
◊ Dermal absorption (through the skin).

General Recommendations to Limit Exposure to Lead in Soil

• Establish a clean hands policy – children should wash their hands when coming in from playing outside and before eating.
◊ Do not eat or smoke in areas with contaminated soil.
• Maintain a healthy grass or sod on play areas. Bare play areas, such as those under a swing set, can also be covered with
woodchips, mulch, or clean sand.
◊ Provide children with a covered sand box and discourage them from playing in the soil.
• Regularly conduct damp mopping and damp dusting of surfaces. Dry sweeping and dusting could increase the amount of
lead-contaminated dust in the air.
◊ If you have carpets, use a vacuum with a High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter. Vacuuming without this type of
filter can increase the amount of lead-contaminated dust in the air.
◊ Avoid tracking soil into the house on your shoes and clothing and by household pets. Ask family members to remove
their shoes by the door, and frequently bathe your pets as they could also track contaminated soil into your home.
American Street Tannery Site June 2007 Page 3

Community Concerns
At the request of a concerned community member, the PADOH, under a cooperative agreement with ATSDR, prepared a health
consultation to determine if residents living near the American Street Tannery Site are exposed to chemicals from the site at levels
that would harm their health. More specifically, residents living near the site expressed concerns about possible mismanagement of
soils during the recent redevelopment of a section of the American Street Tannery Site that might have resulted in contamination of
soils at the Liberty Lands Community Park (as a result of wind blowing contaminated dust and/or water spreading contaminated
soil). They also are concerned about possible groundwater contamination at the site. The health consultation responds to that
request.

Conclusions
Exposure to chemicals at the American Street Tannery Site:
• Exposure to the levels of lead, PCBs, arsenic, chromium, and PAHs found in the soil on the vacant lot area of the American
Tannery site does not pose a health threat.
• More information is needed to determine whether or not soil vapors are impacting the air quality in buildings on or near the
site. Based on the available environmental sampling data, it is not likely that volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) from the site
are entering nearby buildings, via vapor intrusion, and affecting indoor air quality. Vapor intrusion is the process by which
volatile chemicals move from a subsurface source into the indoor air of overlying buildings.

Exposure to chemicals at the Liberty Lands Community Park:

• Frequent exposure to on-site soils at the Liberty Lands Community Park do not pose a health risk to residents who visit the
park on a regular basis.

PADOH and ATSDR Recommend the Following: Vapor Intrusion

• All children under the age of six should have a blood lead test, if they have not Soil vapor, or soil gas, is the air found
in the pore spaces between soil
been tested for lead. The PADOH Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program
particles. Because of the difference in
recommends a blood lead test for all children at ages one and two years and for all pressure, soil vapor enters buildings
children aged three to six without a confirmed prior lead blood test. In any urban through cracks in slabs or basement
environment, there is a possibility of exposure to lead, especially for children, from floors and walls, and through openings
around sump pumps or where pipes and
many common sources, such as lead based paint, old plumbing materials, or past
electrical wires go through the
soil contamination from leaded gas or former lead smelters. Many children with foundations. If soil vapor is
elevated lead levels do not show any obvious symptoms. If your child under six contaminated, and enters a building
years of age has not had a recent blood lead test, contact the City of Philadelphia indoor air quality may be affected.
Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program for information on lead poisoning
prevention, including blood lead testing at (215) 685-2788. Or, you may prefer to
discuss this recommendation with your family doctor. For the same reasons,
women who are pregnant, or planning to become pregnant, should discuss
their risk of exposure to lead with their doctor.
↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑
• EPA obtain sub-slab soil vapor samples beneath buildings located on the Vapors
American Street Tannery site to confirm our belief that chemicals from the site do
not pose a health threat via indoor air. Groundwater
 Community Fact Sheet
June 2007

American Street Tannery Site and Sampling Locations

Contact Information

Send or fax public comments to:

Chad Clancy
Health Assessment Program
PA Department of Health
Bureau of Epidemiology
Rm 933 Health & Welfare Building
7th and Forster Streets
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Fax: (717) 346-3286

For Health Information :

Chad Clancy
Barbara Allerton
PA Department of Health
(717) 346-3283

Lora Siegmann Werner, MPH or

Ana Pomales
The Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry
(215) 814-3141 or
(215) 814-5716

Philadelphia Childhood Lead Poisoning

Prevention Program
(215) 685-2788

For information about the

environmental sampling and
cleanup of the site:
Marcos Aquino
EPA Federal On-Scene
Study area Coordinator
(215) 814-3422
What’s Next? Carrie Deitzel
EPA Community Involvement
• PADOH and ATSDR will make available a public comment version of the health Coordinator
Deitzel.carrie@epa.gov
consultation. The document will be open for public comment for 30 days from the (215) 814-5525
date of publication. Please note: the date of publication will be on the cover of the
HC, when finalized.
For a copy of the health
consultation or for more
• A copy of the health consultation will be available on the EPA website: information about the site:
www.epaosc.net/americanstreettannery or by calling (717) 346-3283. www.epaosc.net/
americanstreettannery

• The PADOH and ATSDR will review additional environmental data and continue to be
available to the community to respond to health concerns regarding this site.
This fact sheet was supported by funds from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act trust fund through a cooperative agreement with the
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.