Advocates Question Whether EPA Cleanups Are Protective For Gardening

EPA guidance for determining whether sites contaminated with chemical compounds need remediation does not include what one long-time advocate calls an increasingly important exposure pathway -- home-grown produce -- leading the advocate to raise concerns that some sites may not have sufficiently stringent cleanup goals. The agency's preliminary remediation goal (PRG) calculator for radionuclides, which EPA defines as radioactive forms of elements, includes this gardening pathway. EPA's regional screening level (RSL) calculator for chemicals does not. "We are cleaning up...