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Gold Star Mothers Park could remain closed until 2027 or beyond after routine testing revealed lead and other soil contaminants that could pose a significant risk to the health of children playing at the park, Cambridge officials said on Thursday.
The city found the contaminants during the reconstruction of the park’s basketball court in early August. The park, located in East Cambridge, has been closed to the public since early September.
If left unchecked, the elevated lead levels could significantly impact the health of children playing in the park, toxicologist Marie Rudiman said at a Thursday meeting of the Cambridge Department of Public Health. Rudiman is a risk assessor for Weston and Sampson, an environmental consulting firm hired by the city to test the soil.
Rudiman presented the contaminants found in the park’s soil alongside predicted adverse health effects on young children. She focused mainly on soil ingestion, but also discussed effects through skin contact.
Rudiman — while presenting data on a “worst case scenario” — showed that a toddler could suffer central nervous system damage and slowed cognitive development as a result of repeatedly ingesting small amounts of lead. A toddler who ingests roughly 100 milligrams of the soil three times a week consistently for thirty weeks could see non-cancerous nervous system damage, according to Rudiman.
Several parents at the meeting said that their children spent more than three days a week playing in the park prior to its closure.
But lead was not the only contaminant found. Polychlorinated biphenyls, a carcinogen commonly known as PCBs, also appeared in the soil testing. Skin exposure to PCBs can lead to chloracne, a severe skin condition that can cause open sores.
The city is still testing for contamination in the groundwater under the park, which Rudiman said could pose other health risks.
“We have installed five monitoring wells,” Rudiman said. “The groundwater will be collected and analyzed in the next coming weeks.”
The city is not offering free medical testing for residents. Sam Lipson, DPH director of environmental health, advised residents to seek testing from their medical providers.
Reconstruction of the park’s basketball courts began last December, and routine soil testing began in March after the courts were demolished. Weston and Sampson launched more comprehensive sampling after finding initial evidence of contamination in August.
The current renovation website details levels of soil contaminants, planned improvements to park infrastructure, and a schedule stating that construction will be finished by this fall. The park will remain closed to the public until the soil is decontaminated.
City officials told residents that construction would only begin around spring 2027, as the city waits for approval from the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA regulates PCBs under the Toxic Substances Control Act, and is in charge of overseeing cleanup plans.
“Currently, U.S. EPA is understaffed, especially in the PCB side of it,” Lee Koska, a Weston and Sampson senior project manager, said in the meeting.
“We’re doing everything we can to expedite it. But unfortunately, like so many things in our life, we’re impacted by the overall federal situation,” he said.
The city plans to excavate the top two feet of soil in the park when construction begins, then covering the soil with a geotextile fabric layer to prevent further contamination.
Gold Star Mothers Park sits on the former site of a meat processing plant, which burned to the ground in 1963 in the “Great Cambridge Fire” — leaving the neighborhood covered in rubble and ash for years.
“The contamination we’re seeing is attributed to all of that ash and fill material at deeper gaps across the whole site,” Koska said. Fill material, like sand or gravel, is often used to level soil for construction.
For residents, the concerns are two-fold: uncertainty of the park’s future and fear that lead contamination could spread throughout the neighborhood.
“They very carefully side-step the real questions people ask, which are, ‘Should I be really worried about my kid who has been playing there?’” resident Heather M. Hoffman ’83 said. “I’m just — I am angry.”
