LONG BEACH : Lead Being Removed From Model Boat Shop

City parks officials are working to return a preschool to a city-owned recreation facility after tests on children and employees who used the site showed no dangerous levels of exposure to lead.

Officials recently removed 12 inches of topsoil from the Long Beach Model Boat Shop after tests found lead contamination of soil and work surfaces at the facility in September, recreation Supt. Jana Ransom said. Tables and benches were also removed and will be replaced, she said.

The soil may be replaced by the end of the month, which would allow the Colorado Lagoon Preschool Co-Op to return to the boat shop, Ransom said. The school was moved temporarily in September to a recreation building at 5620 Atherton St. in Whaley Park.

Tests were ordered for the site after a parent complained in August that children were filing lead moldings as part of a summer program in building model boats. The same boat-building process has been used for 60 years at the facility, which is near the Colorado Lagoon at 5119 Colorado St.

City officials found regular levels of lead exposure during tests on 26 preschoolers, three employees who worked at the facility and 24 children who constructed model boats at the facility over the past two summers, city health officer Darryl Sexton said.

Park and recreation officials will develop a new process for constructing the metal keels that keep the model boats upright.