Most locals know Park City’s soil is contaminated with lead, arsenic and other heavy metals due to its mining history.
So when construction projects across the city begin — like the Park City School District’s new athletics fields or burying transmission lines on Kearns Boulevard — health concerns are bound to arise.
But soil and environmental experts say there’s not always cause for concern. Threats to human health and the environment can depend on a variety of factors, including exposure and location.
So what’s required on construction sites to keep the community safe? A complicated web of federal, state and local rules.
Park City School District construction
Construction has been ongoing at the Park City School District’s Kearns campus since the summer of 2025.
Two soccer fields, eight tennis courts and a softball and baseball field are being built where Treasure Mountain Junior High previously stood. Dozier Field west of Park City High School is getting a new track, turf and concessions building.
Treasure Mountain has more scrutiny when it comes to moving dirt as it's in a special category of land. A decade ago, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) targeted the site for removal activities under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), a 1980 federal environmental law. Treasure is one of several sites up Empire Canyon targeted for remediation efforts, called the Uintah Mine District.
In 2016, the EPA financed and completed cleanup efforts at Treasure, which involved putting a six-inch cap of clean soil on the site. According to a state audit, the Park City School District voluntarily entered into an environmental covenant on the property as a condition of the EPA financing the project.
Anytime soil is disturbed in the area, a six-inch cap of clean soil — defined as 200 parts per million of lead or less — must be placed on top.
The covenant also has requirements on timing. Crews must place a cap within 30 days of construction activity or soil disturbance. Soil also can’t leave covenant boundaries.
The district broke those regulations starting in 2018 and finished remediation efforts in 2024.
That’s why recent construction on the site has raised safety concerns. The district says it’s being more diligent when it comes to soil: it has a soils management plan, contractors send weekly sample reports to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality and there’s a full-time environmental consultant on site.
DEQ spokesperson Dave Noriega said the state division also visits the site once a month. He said the district has followed the rules since the 2025 project began and there’s no public safety risk.
The Park City School District recently told KPCW the uncovered piles on the site are topsoil, while the contaminated soil is kept under tarps. The district plans to bury the soil on site before installing a six-inch cap, as the covenant allows. This would reduce costs since the contaminated soil wouldn’t need to be hauled away.
Noriega said the soil must be tested before it's buried. If lead levels are too high, it must be removed.
Construction on Dozier Field less than half a mile away has different requirements as it isn’t a CERCLA site. On top of state rules, it must follow Park City’s Soil Cover Ordinance.
Park City Soils Cover Ordinance
The Park City Soils Cover Ordinance is the most well-known local protection. Adopted in 1988, Park City Property and Environmental Services Manager Ryan Blair said the code was a response to EPA activity in the area.
“EPA came to town and they started doing some testing, and the people in Park City were like, ‘We don't like you very much. We're going to attempt to hold you off by passing our own local ordinance that helps us protect human health and puts a clean cap over certain parts of city property,’” Blair said.
The EPA was in Park City due to the passage of CERCLA in 1980. The law gave the EPA authority to investigate releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that could endanger public health or the environment. It also provided $1.6 billion to clean up abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.
Blair said Park City’s ordinance was more restrictive than EPA standards until 2024, when the federal entity updated guidelines to match the ski town’s. Both consider soil clean if lead levels are 200 parts per million or less. That’s also in the Treasure Mountain environmental covenant.
The definition doesn’t mention other heavy metals, Blair said, because lead is a good indicator for contamination.
“If you tackle lead, you kind of take care of the other contaminants. If you can get down to that level on lead, you can get down to a safe level for arsenic and all those other things,” Blair said.
He said the ordinance is not proactive, only triggering when a shovel hits the dirt. When soil is moved, often for construction, the ordinance requires a six-inch cap of approved topsoil as well as dust control measures. That could include watering or a tarp covering a soil pile.
Park City’s ordinance first covered the Prospector neighborhood, where streams had transported mine tailings, or waste rock, to the area for decades.
Over time, more properties have been added. The Park City School District’s Kearns campus up to Comstock Drive was added in 2006, and the last addition was around 2014.
The ordinance now stretches from Park Avenue to the Gordo property and from the top of Main Street to Kearns Boulevard in an inverted “L” shape. The Silver Star neighborhood is also included.
Blair said two construction projects fall inside the ordinance boundaries: Dozier Field and transmission line work starting in mid-May along Woodbine Way.
The city will ensure dust control requirements are followed and the sites have a six-inch cap of clean soil when complete.
What about areas not covered by Park City’s ordinance?
Not all of the Transmission line undergrounding work on Kearns between Bonanza Drive and state Route 224 falls within Park City’s ordinance. However, safety measures are still required.
“There are state regs and programs out there that allow you to clean up your property through a state program, and you get restrictions placed on it as part of that development,” Blair said. “It's almost dual regulation at that point to have an ordinance.”
Federal and Utah laws also require a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, or SWPPP [swip], for every construction site that disturbs an acre or more of land. The state permits are meant to limit stormwater pollutants and erosion.
Soil testing is also standard practice for any construction project. In 2023, for example, Park City’s environmental team tested soil on the 5-acre Bonanza Park site, which is set to become a mixed-use development.
The tests revealed other residual contamination as well.
“There was a gas station and a car shop on that property,” Blair said. “So when we go to build out that site, we'll know exactly where the contaminated material is. We'll pull that off and dispose of it, and then we'll do another test and make sure we're in the clean material.”
Dust control is also standard. Blair said that’s what happened on the Kearns Boulevard undergrounding; crews watered sand to keep the dust out of the air.
When does Park City soil become a safety hazard?
Blair said it’s unlikely Park City’s soil would become a safety hazard given the regulations in place. But it’s all about magnitude and scope.
For public health to be impacted, he said locals would need repeated exposure over years.
“It would be years of walking by that construction site, breathing in that dust, or multiple instances of eating dirt that's heavily contaminated,” Blair said.
That’s why the soil ordinance and environmental covenant prioritize a cap; it provides a physical barrier between humans and the contaminated material.
For excavations, Noriega said wind can be a problem. But there are ways to mitigate that as well.
On the Treasure Mountain site, he said the environmental consultant monitors air quality. So far, Noriega said air test results have been well within the Occupational Safety and Health Administration requirements.
Construction on the Dozier and Treasure Mountain sites is expected to be completed this summer.
