By Jennifer Edwards
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LIBERTY TWP. - Meeting with residents and neighbors of a subdivision with high lead levels in the soil, state environmental officials conceded Tuesday they haven't found anything yet to indicate any laws have been violated, but said they do have concerns and questions.

Among those concerns is that previous testing for lead in the soil may not have been conducted deep enough in the soil.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is investigating whether lead in the soil at Lexington Manor off Millikin Road is a health hazard and whether the lead-tainted soil was properly handled before homes were built.

Key to their probe is whether the lead-tainted soil was at hazardous levels when it was treated and buried in 2000 before the land was developed.

"We have soil regrading on properties all the time. There's probably contaminated soils being regraded in a lot of those situations," Harold O'Connell, supervisor of OEPA's hazardous waste management division, told about 50 residents in a meeting at the township hall. "The question is, is there knowledge associated with the level of contaminants that would constitute a hazardous waste and would there have been waste-management activities that may have violated Ohio law."

Also Tuesday, OEPA revealed that the subdivision's builder, Ryland Homes, has indicated it plans to enter the 25-acre parcel into the agency's Voluntary Action Program. The program ensures cleanup was properly done and certifies that no further action is needed.

Lead concentrations at Lexington Manor have been a concern since late last year. The homes, which range in price from $190,000 to $330,000, sit on land that used to hold a clay-pigeon skeet-shooting range, where lead shot fell into the soil, according to OEPA.

After the range shut down in 1969, the parcel was a cattle farm.

Now, homeowners want more effort to clean up the soil and others want to sell. OEPA began investigating after neighbors alerted them that high lead levels turned up in a yard late last year.

Nearly 20 families - more than half the subdivision - have filed lawsuits against Ryland and/or the developer and others over the lead situation.

So far, there are no indications that anyone at Lexington Manor has suffered health problems from exposure to the soil.

Lead exposure damages the brain, nervous system and other tissues. At high levels, it can be deadly. At chronic lower levels, lead can hurt learning ability, damage short-term memory and increase the likelihood of criminal behavior.

Ryland has paid for two rounds of soil sampling at Lexington Manor and has plans for a third phase to find out how deep the lead goes into the soil and to identify cleanup boundaries.

But after being prompted Tuesday by neighbors and an attorney representing 17 families, OEPA officials said they have concerns about the accuracy of Ryland's testing and that the soil sampling went only 11/2 inches deep. OEPA plans to address those issues with Ryland.

"To test the top inch and a half doesn't show anything meaningful beneath the soil," Hyde Park attorney Chris Finney said. "We want more testing and deeper testing to ascertain the full contamination and a comprehensive cleanup."

Fearing for their children's safety and property values, some Lexington Manor residents are furious that Ryland did not disclose the lead situation.

Neighbors who live behind the subdivision on Carthel Drive also have complained about runoff water gushing onto their yards from Lexington Manor. They fear it may be lead-tainted. OEPA plans to test water there soon.

"I got the short end of this," said resident Ron Patterson, who has lived on Carthel for 30 years. "I want my house to be safe and now I can't sell it until I know for sure. I don't want to pass a contaminated place along to anyone else."

A spokeswoman for Ryland has said the company was not obligated to tell residents about the lead because Ryland received assurance the land was safe.

Attorneys for the developer have said everyone involved with the property did the right thing and that the developer followed recommendations from an environmental firm it hired to assist in remediating the land, which included rototilling the lead-tainted soil with clean soil, and then treating the soil with lime before it was buried in 2000.

E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com.