MURRAY SMELTER
MURRAY, SALT LAKE COUNTY, UTAH
SUMMARY
The proposed Murray Smelter National Priorities List (NPL) Site in Murray, Utah, is no apparent public health hazard based on the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) evaluation of available environmental data, testing of blood lead and urine arsenic levels in Grandview and Doc and Dell Mobile Home Park residents, and community health concerns. Murray Smelter operated from 1902 - 1949 and resulted in contamination of the area soils with arsenic, cadmium, and lead.
Health effects due to arsenic, cadmium, and lead are unlikely due to limited exposure to these metals. This conclusion is based on an evaluation of blood lead and urine arsenic levels in children and adults from Grandview and Doc and Dell Mobile Home Parks. No elevated blood lead or urine arsenic levels were identified. This conclusion is also based on a toxicological evaluation of worker exposure situations which indicated that exposure levels were too low to result in health effects. However, if exposure circumstances change so that the amount of exposure increases significantly, health effects could occur. Therefore, remediation of contaminated soil should be done based on the potential for health effects as indicated by the soil levels of those metals.
Although shallow groundwater on the Murray Smelter site is contaminated with arsenic, it is not being used as a source of drinking water by local private or municipal well water users.
In this public health assessment, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) evaluates the public health significance of the proposed Murray Smelter National Priorities List (NPL) site in Murray, Utah. More specifically, ATSDR has reviewed available environmental and health outcome data and community health concerns to determine whether adverse health effects are possible. In addition, this public health assessment recommends actions to reduce, prevent, or identify more clearly the possibility for site-related adverse health effects. ATSDR, in Atlanta, Georgia, is one of the agencies of the U.S. Public Health Service. The Superfund law (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 [CERCLA] as amended by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 [SARA]) requires ATSDR to conduct public health assessments of hazardous waste sites within 1 year of the site's proposal for the NPL.
This public health assessment has a distinctly different purpose than the risk assessment that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is releasing on the Murray site (1). This public health assessment evaluates the overall public health significance of the site. EPA's risk assessment identifies the maximum risks to humans from site-related contaminants if there was no clean-up of the site. It is used to guide cleaning up the site.
A. Site Description and History
The proposed Murray Smelter NPL site is northwest of the corner of State Street and 53rd South Street in the City of Murray, Salt Lake County, Utah (see Appendix 1, Figure 1). Murray is approximately 6 miles south of Salt Lake City.
Murray Smelter is an abandoned lead smeltering facility which the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) operated from 1902 through 1949 (2). The smelting process produced large amounts of a dark, rock-like waste material called slag that contains high concentrations of heavy metals such as lead. During and after the operation of the smelter, the slag was used widely as railroad ballast, road base, parking lot gravel, and fill. About 80,000 tons of the slag remain at the site. When the Murray Smelter was operating, it also released metals and other materials to the air, resulting in contamination of the soil around the site. We do not know the extent of this soil contamination, and determining its specific origin is difficult because nearly 100 smelters operated in the area in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Concrete, asphalt, and other commercial or manufacturing facilities and small industries now use the Murray Smelter site. The site also includes two mobile home parks, Doc and Dell's and Grandview (Figure 1)(3). Slag areas and slag in soil are present on the site. The commercial portion of the site is fenced except along Little Cottonwood Creek. The residential on-site areas are not fenced. On-site remnants of the smelter operation include two large smoke stacks, a foundation wall of one building, the old office building, and the slag piles (2). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed on January 18, 1994, that the Murray Smelter site be placed on the NPL (3).
B. Site Visit
ATSDR staff members conducted three site visits. John Crellin, PhD, from ATSDR in Atlanta and Susan Muza from the ATSDR Region VIII Office in Denver visited the site on October 27, 1994. They met with representatives of EPA, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality (UDEQ), the Salt Lake County Health Department, and the City of Murray and toured the site.
Ms. Muza, Dr. Crellin, Laura Barr, and Ahmed Gomaa, MD, ScD, from ATSDR in Atlanta toured the site and met with representatives of EPA; UDEQ; the City of Murray; and ASARCO, the responsible party, on April 17- 18, 1995.
Drs. Crellin and Gomaa made a site visit on October 30 - 31, 1995 to provide technical assistance for an exposure investigation of residents of the Grandview and Doc and Dell Mobile Home Parks. This study was conducted by Salt Lake City/County Health Department, and Kleinfelder (a contractor for ASARCO) staff. During this site visit, Dr. Crellin also met with ASARCO and City of Murray staff.
C. Demographics, Land Use, and Natural Resources Use
As indicated on Figure 2 and based on data from the 1990 census, about 20,000 people live within 1 mile of the Murray site. Most of those individuals are white. There are about 2,100 children 5 years or younger, 2,700 individuals 60 years or older, and 4,200 women of child-bearing age (18-45 years old).
Figure 1 depicts the locations of schools, parks, bodies of water, smelter sites, and city wells within a mile of the site.
D. Health Outcome Data
Using state and federal health databases, it may be possible to determine whether there is a higher than expected number of certain health effects in the area around the Murray site. However, for reasons discussed in the Health Outcome Data Evaluation section of this public health assessment, it was not possible to perform such an evaluation at this site.
A mail survey solicited health concerns of the 77 residents of Grandview and Doc and Dell Mobile Home Parks and 47 other area residents identified by Murray city officials. Each person received a letter requesting health concerns, a fact sheet on public health assessments, a form to list health concerns, and a stamped return envelope. Residents could also call in their health concerns to a toll-free voice mail number.
Fifteen households responded. Six individuals identified health concerns and nine indicated that they had no health concerns about the Murray Smelter site.
The health concerns and ATSDR's response appear below. Whenever a person gave a name and address, we responded with a letter acknowledging receipt of the form, and followed up with a call when requested.
| Concern: | Four individuals asked whether the drinking water supply is safe to drink. |
| Concern: | Two individuals asked whether the allergies, seizures, and pain that their family members were experiencing could be related to the Murray Smelter site. |
| Concern: | One individual asked whether the dust in the area represents a health risk. |
| Concern: | Two individuals asked whether it is safe to eat vegetables grown in area soils. |
| Concern: | One individual expressed concern about the large trucks that regularly go past her mobile home. |
