Officials Play Down Threat From Arsenic at Park in D.C.

At Fort Reno Park in Northwest, soil samples are taken to be tested for arsenic. Fort Reno was closed after high levels of arsenic were found there. (By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)
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But, Hawkins said, the site "is big enough that those samples wouldn't necessarily have covered" the places where excessive levels were found. "There absolutely could be hot spots with arsenic," he said. "There could be particular places where there are high levels and others not."

If experts determine that contaminated soil at the park should be removed, Cheh said, "we will take [action] immediately."

Cano said people who have used the park should not worry about health effects because the contaminated soil could be harmful only if swallowed.

"There's no recommendation for [medical] testing to be done on residents at this point," he said. "This would not be considered an acute toxic event, so there's no urgency to have anybody tested."

In a telephone interview, environmental scientist Joseph Graziano, who teaches at Columbia University, agreed with officials who played down the public health risk.

"One has to swallow the soil" for it to be hazardous, Graziano said. Although small children playing in the dirt might swallow some of the dust clinging to their hands, he said, a child would have to be exposed repeatedly to be in danger.

He said studies of arsenic-contaminated groundwater in Bangladesh found that many people did not show symptoms of illness until they had been exposed for 10 years or more.

"One-time ingestion of a little bit of dust on the hand . . . would not be a concern," Graziano said.