Community members in Durham are confronting an environmental issue that hits close to home, and local parks are at the center of the debate. High levels of lead and other toxins have been discovered in the soil of five city parks, which now remain cordoned off with orange fencing and warning signs, citing dangers of contamination. The parks in question include East Durham, East End, Lyon, Northgate, and Walltown parks, as reported by WRAL.
The plight of these parks first came to light following a report by a Duke University researcher in 2022, which incited the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) to take up a closer examination. After a year of study, the parks are anticipated to be closed through, at least the end of 2025. As Wade Walcutt, Durham's Parks and Recreation Director, emphasized the city's commitment to transparency and addressing the issue, he mentioned in a statement reported by CBS17, “Whatever data we get, we’ll create a menu of options that us and the community can look at. We’ll all have a say and input on how we want to take care of these parks and reopen the parks.”
An update on the situation was provided at a recent community meeting at Walltown Recreation Center, where the atmosphere turned into an exchange replete with resident inquiries and scrutinies. The public's agitation stems not only from the present-day closure but also from the reflection on what unseen health impacts may have been suffered historically. "It's a shame for me to come back here and see that it took 76 years for somebody to discover that these parks were contaminated," Thomas Long, a lifelong Walltown resident told ABC11, expressing his concern and connecting personal health battles to the latent findings.
Allegations of negligence and a delayed response—exacerbated by demographic shifts in the community—were also voiced, bringing to question whether the acknowledgment of such hazards comes too late. Durham city councilmember DeDreana Freeman responded to these concerns, stating, "If there were elevated lead levels for children in our community 30 years ago, 20 years ago, or 10 years ago, that would show up in our data" This statement obtained by ABC11 reflects her position on historical health data's role in current deliberations.
