Department of Ecology workers plan to test soil at two Everett parks to see if smokestack emissions from a former smelter have left traces of arsenic and lead in the dirt.
Both parks, American Legion Memorial Park and Wiggums Hollow Park, will be open during the testing in December but you may see some workers and machinery.
The soil testing is part of a multi-year state project to sample, test and — if necessary — clean up soil contaminated by the former smelter called Asarco. The state is paying for the work with $34 million received in a 2009 settlement from Grupo Mexico, a mining company based in Mexico City. The company had acquired Asarco, which operated the Everett smelter from 1894 to 1912 at what is now the intersection of E. Marine View Drive and Highway 529.
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