By Erica Solvig and Michael D. Clark
The Cincinnati Enquirer

KINGS MILLS - The soil around Kings High School and its football field are being tested for possible lead contamination because of suspicions that the grounds once hosted ammunition testing and later a shooting club, say state environmental officials.

The campus' 63-acre site on Columbia Road is home to about 1,600 senior and junior high students who are slated to return to the Warren County schools later this month.

"We don't know that there is anything to alarm people about," said Kings spokeswoman Beth Wagner. "This is part of the EPA's routine testing. As a district we are glad the EPA approached us."

The school campus area is one of several sites that Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials are looking at because of possible connections to the former Peters Cartridge Co. whose nearby factory site - which produced shells for American soldiers in World War I - is on the U.S. EPA's proposed Superfund cleanup list.

Ohio EPA officials said they collected about 10 soil samples this week. Officials expect the lab results should be back Monday or Tuesday.

"We're trying to handle this as responsibly and as quickly as possible," said Tom Winston, Ohio EPA southwest district chief. "We're trying to put the pieces (of the investigation) together." Kings School officials said they have known about the testing for a couple of weeks and that EPA officials have explained that it is only a precautionary measure as part of their usual testing procedures to examine the soil for lead, from shotgun pellets and bullets, at all surrounding sites.

Wagner said district officials decided there was no reason to publicly announce the testing since it was routine under OEPA procedures and not prompted by any preliminary evidence of lead in the soil.

Kings Superintendent Charles Mason was unavailable to comment but Konrad Kircher, the district's school board president, "we don't know yet if there is a problem.

"We're all anxious to see the results," Kircher said of the OEPA's testing. "But we're confident we can handle whatever comes up."

Kings High School football coach Andy Olds' team practices at one of the suspect sites, and it plays its games nearby at George G. King Stadium, which decades ago may have been a shooting range.

"It's news to me," said Olds upon learning Friday about the testing. He said he was surprised he hadn't been told of the lead testing. "We spend more time out there on the grounds than anybody. If there is a problem I want to know."

Olds said he plans to talk to district officials about possibly moving his team's practice site. The squad plays a scrimmage today at Edgewood High School in Butler County.

While Winston said there is no government database confirming where shooting ranges were, long-time residents have said the site used to be a sports shooting range for the Kings Mills Gun Club.

"If it did exist, it's clear it was before the (junior high) school was built in 1967," Winston said.

But 49-year-old Dan Renner, a resident of nearby Hamilton Township, said he has no doubt about the club's existence. Renner said he spent part of his childhood skeet and trap shooting at the club during the early 1960s.

Recent news about lead and arsenic contamination at Lexington Manor, a Butler County subdivision in Liberty Township built on a former skeet shooting range, makes Renner concerned about possible health risks to Kings students.

"I'm thinking they built a school on top of one of these shooting galleries," said Renner. Lead has been linked to a number of chronic health problems and diseases including: brain damage, organ failure, hyperactivity, fertility problems, kidney damage and other ailments.

The high school was built adjacent to the junior high in 1989 and expanded in 1996.

The U.S. EPA found lead on the Peters Cartridge factory site in 1987 during an environmental assessment. The factory is about a mile northeast of Paramount's Kings Island. Remington Arms bought the factory in 1934 and continued to make ammunition until the end of World War II. The factory closed in 1944.

The Ohio EPA is asking anyone with information to call the southwest Ohio district headquarters at (937) 285-6357.

E-mail esolvig@enquirer.com and mclark@enquirer.com