I got mine cheap from some guy selling them on craigslist. Appeared to be a regular side gig where he was melting and molding lead scrap in his yard. (Also appeared that he'd inhaled way too much of the fumes over the years.)
LA times Article
Toxic Terrain : Crews Remove Lead Dust From Back-Yard Smelting Shop
June 14, 1992|RICK HOLGUIN | TIMES STAFF WRITER
BELL GARDENS — The men in white protective suits, air-purifying respirators and hard hats worked methodically, cleaning up decades worth of toxic lead dust that had collected around a smelter in Fred Teurman's back-yard workshop.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had declared the property in the 6600 block of Clara Street a threat to public health. Cleanup crews leveled the smelter building last week and began digging up hundreds of cubic yards of contaminated soil. In the process, they unearthed thousands of used hospital vials with tags identifying the contents as radioactive, said Richard Martyn, the project site manager.
Teurman's ramshackle shop, called King Neptune Manufacturers, was a throwback to an era of fewer environmental regulations.
Teurman, 77, had been melting scrap lead, molding it, sawing it and sanding it into diving weights since the mid-1950s. No equipment had been installed to keep potentially harmful lead emissions and dust from polluting the neighborhood.
When inspectors entered the workshop earlier this year, they found lead dust more than two inches deep in places, along with lead scraps, tongs and clamps, heavy insulated gloves and hammers, records indicate.
Recent tests showed the soil in the yard and driveway of Teurman's home is contaminated with lead up to 22 times above safety guidelines, according to EPA records. Lead contamination, in lesser amounts, also was detected in the parkway in front of the Teurman house and in the back yard of the house next door, where Teurman's sister, Neoma J. White, used to live. Contaminated soil will be removed from the sister's former home, where another family is now living.
Of the more than 300 businesses countywide that work with lead, King Neptune posed some of the greatest risks, officials said.
"It's a combination of lots of lead in proximity to residences," said Dr. Paul J. Papanek, chief of the county's Toxics Epidemiology Program. "It wasn't a big business, but in terms of sloppy handling and being in proximity to homes, this is one of the worst."
Lead poisoning can cause irreversible brain damage and chronic illness, and health officials feared the lead-laced soil had blown around the Bell Gardens neighborhood of modest homes, apartments and businesses. They also were concerned that children who played on the property might have picked up the contaminated soil on their hands and shoes.
Officials were relieved to find that nearby residents did not have abnormally high levels of lead in their blood. Test results indicated that the contamination was largely confined to Teurman's yard--probably because the smelter was so small, officials said.
Teurman and his sons, who reportedly worked with the toxic metal for years without protection, face the greatest health risk. But county health officials, citing confidentiality laws, declined to release the results of their tests.
Fred Teurman could not be interviewed. He is frequently disoriented and unable to recall events, said his wife, Carmen, 62. She said she worries about the health of her husband, their five sons and several grandchildren who have stayed in the home over the years. She wonders if her husband's problem is the result of advancing age or lead poisoning. She said she did not know the results of her family's blood tests.
