Southeast L.A. yards are plagued by toxic lead. A dusting of this mineral could help

Under the watchful eyes of neighbors, scientists in white lab coats knelt to spread a flour-like mineral over a lawn in Huntington Park.

The dusting of zeolite doesn’t take long, but it could be key to mitigating a disaster that has festered for decades across southeast Los Angeles County: lead contamination in the soil around thousands of homes.

“It’s 20 minutes of work, and it’s a lifetime of lead remediation for a person’s backyard,” said Aaron Celestian, mineral sciences curator with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and lead scientist with the Prospering Backyards project.

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