EPA has lowered the screening level for lead in soil: Here's what that could mean for households across the US

As spring phases into summer across the U.S., kids are spending more time outdoors. Playing outside is healthy in all kinds of ways, but it also poses some risks. One that many families may not be aware of is exposure to lead in soil, which is still a serious problem, mainly in cities.

Children can be exposed to lead by swallowing or inhaling soil while they are playing. Young children often put their hands in their mouths and may have dirt on their hands. Kids and pets can also track lead dust from soil indoors. And anyone who eats fruit or vegetables grown in contaminated soil can ingest lead.

Early in 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lowered the screening level for lead in residential soils from 400 parts per million—a standard that was more than 30 years old—to 200 parts per million. This more protective lower number reflects current understanding of soil as a significance source of lead exposure for children.

EPA officials said that at homes exposed to lead from multiple sources, the agency will generally use a more conservative 100 parts per million screening level.

This new level is not a cleanup standard; it's a threshold at which the EPA will make site-specific decisions about how to protect people there. Actions may include providing information about soil lead, recommending ways to reduce exposure, or removing the leaded soil and replacing it with clean soil.

The standard is designed to guide EPA assessments of residential soils around polluted sites under two federal laws. The Superfund law addresses hazardous wastes that were improperly created or disposed of before 1976, while the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act governs hazardous waste generation and disposal from that year forward. More than 4,000 sites across the nation are currently being cleaned up under those two laws.

I study urban lead poisoning in children from soil and other sources, and I have worked with colleagues to analyze tens of thousands of soil samples collected from typical homes by research scientists and by citizens across the U.S.. This work is ongoing, but our newly published findings show that under the new EPA standard, potentially harmful lead exposure from soil is far more widespread than many people—including public officials—realize. Reducing this risk will be a very long-term effort.