Good afternoon to all members of the Highland Park community, The Office of Neighborhood Initiatives has received the following information from Parks and Recreation Director Duane Ashley concerning the presence of lead paint at the Highland Park Farmhouse playground. Please be assured that the safety of Pittsburgh's children remains of the utmost concern. City of Pittsburgh employees acted quickly once this situation was brought to their attention and immediately implemented corrective measures to ensure that further paint chip incidents would not occur. The City has accepted the recommendations of one of the area's leading engineering firms specializing in this area of concentration. By implementing the plan presented by L. Robert Kimball and Associates, we are able to not only correct the situation but also do it with minimal service disruption at the Farmhouse playground. All exterior areas at the Farmhouse have already been mitigated in accordance with this plan. Furthermore, as consistent with a report issued by Allegheny County Health Department officials and by L. Robert Kimball and Associates, closure of the area was not mandated as part of the mitigation program. The Farmhouse playground is one of the City's most popular recreational facilities, and keeping it a safe place for our children is a top priority. The City acted quickly - and with the guidance of experts - to resolve the situation and ensure the area's safety not only today but in the years to come. For those interested in the specifics of our action, the City's timeline has been as follows: * Immediately upon notification, the City arranged for an on-site meeting with program staff from the Allegheny County Health Department. This meeting took place on June 27, 2007. * On July 6, we received the Lead-based Paint Risk Assessment Report from the Allegheny County Health Department, which detailed several areas of deficiencies and potential treatment options. The report did not mandate or recommend that the site - including the playground area - be closed due to unsafe conditions detected by health department officials. The area identified as posing the most imminent risk to health and safety was an exterior structure wall where a child was allegedly observed eating peeling paint chips by his parents. * Immediately upon receiving a recommendation to scrape and re-paint this area to prevent further incidents, a Public Works crew scraped and sealed the area the very next day. * City officials convened on July 30 to discuss further measures to address this matter and determined that Kimball and Associates should be retained to direct the City's mitigation effort by providing expertise in matters pertaining to approved treatment options. * On August 1, Kimball's environmental scientist and engineers, along with City officials, conducted a site review. * A week later, on August 8, Kimball contacted Allegheny County Health Department officials to discuss the issues raised in the July report and to discuss mitigation methods. * Based on this action, the City accepted the recommendations listed in Kimball's report issued on August 23 and countersigned by three Kimball officials: the senior project manager, an environmental scientist, and the assistant operations manager. The report stated that a secondary area in question has more than 90% of the exposed area covered with vegetation and that the bare soil that has been so prominently mentioned in word of mouth accounts, is actually limited to two small areas and several bare spots. Furthermore, Kimball's report listed several areas that were identified in the county's report as "not requiring any corrective measures at this time." * A remaining small amount (less than 10%) of exposed soil has been cordoned off by Public Works. A plan of action to mitigate this land is immediately being addressed. All mitigation efforts being undertaken by the City should be finished by the end of November, and the area will be fenced off until then. As for the 2008 Summer season, everything at the Farmhouse playground will be fully operational as normal. Again, the safety of our children is of utmost importance. Rest assured that this matter has been resolved in accordance with the highest degree of attention. If you have any further questions, please contact the Office of Neighborhood Initiatives. Lauren J. Byrne Special Projects Coordinator Department of Neighborhood Initiatives Office of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl 512 City County Building 414 Grant Street Pittsburgh, PA 15219 Phone: 412-255-2566 Fax: 412-255-2687