Ways to Protect Your Health – Recommendations

Until a long-term clean-up action is in place, ATSDR and NYSDOH recommend residents:

  • Minimize direct and repeated contact with bare soils.
  • Maintain a grass or mulch cover whenever possible to help prevent direct contact with the soil.
  • Wipe shoes on doormat or remove shoes before entering the home. Apply general good housekeeping practices by periodically damp mopping floors, vacuuming (using a HEPA filter if available), and cleaning furniture to help reduce exposure to outdoor soil that might be tracked indoors.
  • Avoid the use of brooms.
  • Avoid unnecessary digging in the direct.
  • Children and adults should wash hands after outdoor activities to help reduce the potential for exposure.
  • Wash children’s toys regularly.
  • Refrain from landscaping activities that increase exposure to soil and create bare areas of soil. If residents chose to garden or plant, gloves should be worn and disposed of or washed after use.
  • Refrain from eating food or smoking when working in the yard.
  • Refrain from eating home raised fruits, vegetables, and animal products. If residents choose to garden, they should grow crops in raised bed gardens/containers with imported clean soil instead of the existing soil.
  • Regularly bathe pets that may go outdoors and contact the soil.
  • Properly maintain water treatment systems in accordance with manufacturer’s specification.

The NYSDOH and ATSDR also recommend that residents who are concerned about possible exposure to, and effects from, arsenic contaminated soil should discuss these concerns with their health care provider.

Page last reviewed: April 30, 2019