East Aurora Advertiser

Lead Paint Found in County Parks

No Clear Plan in Place to Remove Playground Equipment with Lead


It’s been several weeks since lead paint was discovered on playground equipment in local county parks, and at the time of publication, all of the equipment is still in place and accessible to the public.

Yellow “caution” tape was discovered wrapped around various structures at Elma Meadows Park on Girdle Road on Aug. 8. Two days later, playground equipment that had tested positive for lead paint at Emery Park in South Wales was also wrapped in tape.

“This will warn families so that the equipment is not used,” Erie County Health Commissioner Gail Burstein said during a phone interview. 

The health department has conducted lead tests on all of the parks in Erie County following Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw’s report that he recently discovered lead paint in five Erie County parks. He said this idea occurred to him following a comment that his wife made during a picnic at Chestnut Ridge Park in Orchard Park, when she said that she didn’t want their son on the playground equipment because the paint was peeling and old. 

The slide at Elma Meadows Park was recently discovered to have dangerous levels of lead paint on it. Photo by Shelly Ferullo

“I started to wonder if it was lead based paint,” Mychajliw said, so he went to a hardware store and purchased a kit to test. 

He discovered that a swing at Elma Meadows Park had a weight concentration of 5 percent, which is 10 times more than the FDA recommends for having lead paint. A swing at Emery Park had a weight concentration of 16, which is 32 times higher than the FDA recommendation for safe levels.

“The condition of county parks is shocking and shameful. Families deserve better,” he said. “As a father, I will never let my child play in a county park.”

The swings at Elma Meadows Park in Elma are blocked off with caution tape because this equipment tested positive for lead paint. Photo by Shelly Ferullo

Mychajliw brought his findings to the health department, who then went out and conducted an independent lead test. The newspaper requested a copy of the test for Emery Park and was instructed to file a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request. 

The FOIL revealed that testing took place on July 25 and 31. Seventy five structures were tested on both days, and samples of paint were tested on hand railings, bathroom walls, shelter columns, swing sets and picnic benches. Each item that was tested was also listed in “deteriorated” condition.  

Burstein said 94 pieces of playground equipment were tested throughout the county, and over half were positive for lead paint. Forty-four shelters were tested during the process with five positive for lead, and 17 bathrooms were tested with four testing positive. In addition, 103 picnic tables were tested and five tested positive for being contaminated with lead paint.

At Elma Meadows, three pieces of equipment tested positive. At Emery Park, one shelter tested positive for lead paint, as did six pieces of playground equipment.

The swings at Elma Meadows Park in Elma are blocked off with caution tape because this equipment tested positive for lead paint. Photo by Shelly Ferullo

The health department is now in the process of working with the County Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department to train the laborers about how to safely remove the equipment or the lead paint, and reduce their risk of exposure in the process. She said that all of the structures in the park that tested positive will be repaired, renovated or replaced. 

However, there is a tug of war match going on between the labor union and the county as to what procedures should be followed during the clean up process. Rich Canazzi is the local President of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. He said that the county wants to follow the Department of Conservations guidelines during the clean up process, which will ensure that the environment is protected, but it does not address the employees who are doing the job. He also wants the county to follow the guidelines of Public Employees Safety and Health (PESH) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

“Everyone has to be safe. Not just the public, but the people who are doing the job,” he said, adding that the county has been ignoring this request. He asked for a cease and desist until these organizations clear the work, and he filed a grievance with the county.

Decades old lead paint is flaking off of this swingset in Emery Park. Photo by Shelly Ferullo

“If they don’t address it, I will take more action,” he said. “They want the work done by September, but they haven’t even told me what sites to go to, and they have not been up front with me about this project.”

Canazzi oversees a crew of around 50 employees who already feel like they do not have enough time to adequately maintain the county parks system, let alone completing this work within the next few weeks. His workers oversee Erie County’s park system, which includes two golf courses, beaches, 30 pocket parks and nine recreational parks, like Emery Park and Akron Falls Park in Akron.

On any given day, Canazzi sends two to four workers per park to work.

“There is never enough time to finish everything,” Canazzi said. “We barely get the grass done, then we pick up the garbage, clean the facilities and start over. It’s unfortunate that the staff is so low.”

He does not keep records of the work they do, but he said most of the time they are cutting grass or removing snow, unless the superintendent of the individual park asks for something else. This request can also come from the county executive’s office.

Canazzi does not remember the last time that a day was spent repainting park playground equipment at any park, and he does not feel responsible for the lead paint that was recently discovered.

“It’s hard to feel responsible when you ask the right questions, but don’t always get the right answers,” Canazzi said. “Some parks get more attention than others, and the golf courses are always a priority.”

A master plan of the county park system from 2003, which is available for viewing on the county website, said that Emery Park contained “numerous outdated play structures that do not meet current safety or accessibility codes” and they should be addressed. It does not mention any of the playground equipment in Elma Meadows needing an upgrade.

Troy Schinzel is the Commissioner of County Parks, Recreation and Forestry, and he also served time in this position a few years ago. He said in his previous stint, hundreds of pieces of outdated playground equipment was from the parks. This was because the equipment was no longer being used, or because the equipment was located in places where it didn’t make sense. 

“The train of thought in parks has gone from individual pieces of equipment next to every shelter, to having a big, comprehensive playground in a central location within the park. It has been a different philosophy over the years,” Schinzel said. “That’s the other reason we started removing them years ago, and hundreds have been removed since.” 

Schinzel said he had no idea that there was lead paint on any of the equipment, and there is no state mandate for testing playground equipment for lead paint within the parks. 

At this point, he does not have an estimate for how much it will cost to remove all of the playground equipment.

Mychajliw said that the county has borrowed over $13 million since 2015 for the park system, but only half of it has been spent.

“The administration borrowed a significant amount of money to maintain them. For whatever reason, they are not spending it. To us, it’s an issue of mismanagement,” he said. 

Burstein said since she has been in this role, she has not seen a case of lead poisoning that stemmed from using playground equipment in a county park.

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