With more than half of the world’s population now living in cities, urban parks and green spaces have a more important role than ever.  Parks connect people to nature, provide spaces for relaxation and recreation, and strengthen both the body and the spirit.  The 2008 International Urban Parks Conference, scheduled for September 21-23 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will explore this valuable connection. Body and Soul: Parks and the Health of Great Cities will bring together leading-edge research experts, public officials, and management innovators to help shape the future of our cities.
 
Over 90 speakers will provide practical information on issues from managing parks sustainably to forming partnerships that promote active living through park usage.  Keynote addresses from Teresa Heinz, Luis Garden Acosta, and Richard Louv focus on making connections between people, parks, and the environment as a whole. 

Many conference sessions directly address the need to establish parks as centers for healthy, active living.  Topics include “One Step at a Time: Promoting Physical Activity in the Park,” “No One Left Inside: Lifting Barriers to Park Access for All,” and “Re-Discovering Our Neighbors and Our Community in City Parks.”

In addition to the wide variety of conference sessions, attendees can participate in a number of pre-conference tours, including visits to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and bike and kayak tours of Pittsburgh.  Tours of Pittsburgh’s downtown and riverfront will highlight the city’s near-miraculous transformation from “Smoky City” to America’s Most Livable City.  Mobile workshops in Pittsburgh’s parks will present in-depth case studies that showcase a wide range of innovative restoration and development initiatives.  And the Body and Soul Exhibit Hall will feature the parks-related products and services of nearly 50 organizations.

Body and Soul is a presentation of City Parks Alliance and the National Association for Olmsted Parks and is a production of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.  The complete schedule, speaker information, and registration are available at www.urbanparks08.org.

By HOPE HODGE
New York Sun
June 23, 2008

New York elementary schools are woefully lacking in outdoor play spaces, with nearly half of all schools having no playground for recess, and schools in minority communities are the worst off, a new report released yesterday by state Senator Jeffrey Klein finds.

Mr. Klein introduced a bill that would ban the construction of any school without a playground and prohibit current schools from using yard space for any purpose that would result in less room for play areas. [More]

Learn more about the benefits of play.

Parents, clubs, businesses provide money for school facility in poor neighborhood
By Cathy Spaulding
Muskogee (Okla.) Daily Phoenix
June 21, 2008

Sixth-grader Kayla Royse said she didn’t have a decent playground set for all the years she spent at Irving Elementary School.

“I just walk around and be bored during recess,” she said. “I didn’t think I could ever get to see a playground set that was fun.”

When Kayla and other Irving students come back to school this August, they’ll have a new set — yellow and Rougher green, complete with humpy slides, towers and spiral ladders.

Irving school administrators and Parent Teacher Organization members said hard work and good fortune helped them raise the thousands of dollars to buy and put up the playground set.

Irving, however, faced an extra challenge because of its high poverty rate, Irving principal Dr. Pam Bradley said. In 2007, 87 percent of Irving students were on free or reduced lunch. Tony Goetz Elementary, where Bradley used to be principal, had a 60 percent of its students on free or reduced lunch. The district average was 75 percent on free and reduced lunch; the state average, 56 percent. [More]

Check out the KaBOOM! one-stop fundraising shop for all kinds of fundraising resources!

Police say young people caught on tape setting fire
By ROBIN FITZGERALD
Biloxi Sun-Herald

GULFPORT -- Surveillance cameras at Bel-Aire Elementary filmed several young people as they gathered pine straw and set the school playground on fire Friday, authorities said.

The blaze heavily damaged one of two sets of colorful playground equipment in a fire possibly started on a 2-inch layer of rubber padding. The padding was on top of a concrete slab, a safety feature to cushion the falls of kids using the slides and climbing bars. The fire melted the yellow slides and a blue canvas covering that offered a bit of shade.

"I'm talking first-class playground equipment," said Henry Arledge, superintendent of the Harrison County School District. "It's very expensive equipment, probably between $15,000 and $30,000." [More]

Discuss playground vandalism in the Forums.

5-year-old leads charge to create eco-friendly park
By Rob Daniel
Iowa City Press-Citizen
June 21, 2008

Last fall, Jim Cochran's next-door neighbor, Jay Dean, planned to get rid of the backyard playground he had built for his children years ago.

Cochran offered to take it, and his 5-year-old son, Sebastian, had some ideas of what to do with it.

"I just thought about it," Sebastian said.

The end result was a playground in his backyard that was enjoyed by the family and the entire neighborhood Friday afternoon. Using motifs ranging from Noah's Ark to a treehouse, Sebastian, his father, his father's girlfriend, Lisa DeShano, and neighbors and friends transformed a basic wooden structure into the ultimate playland that is fun and ecologically friendly in that it was built with roughly 95 percent recycled materials.

"It's saving the environment," DeShano said. "It's more than saving money." [More]

Discuss eco-friendly and natural playgrounds in the Forums.

By Babs Johnson
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
June 20, 2008

FEMA's slow response to the restoration of New Orleans' public ball fields and playgrounds shows a sweeping disregard for those who have been affected most: our children. My jaw dropped reading a recent statement from FEMA that the expense of sod vs. seed "required review from high authority," an astounding comment after the recent revelation that $85 million in supplies for Katrina victims languished unknown and unused for two years.

Many of the trailers that housed displaced people on city playgrounds have been vacant for six months; some for eight. Why couldn't FEMA and the city reach agreements on how to restore the play areas before the trailers were removed, since both agencies were aware that would happen months prior to the actual removal dates?

Many children in these neighborhoods relied on these ball fields and playgrounds. They were the only places providing them safe, wholesome places to play -- that is, to do the important work of childhood. Without those, many are finding the street corners and all the ills that lifestyle holds. [More]

Learn how KaBOOM! is bringing play back to the Gulf Coast through Operation Playground.

BY DEBORAH MEDENBACH
Middletown (N.Y.) Times Herald-Record
June 18, 2008

NEW PALTZ — A "candy mint" crab apple tree was planted Tuesday morning near the new Lenape Elementary School playground. The tree honors a group of 23 students who complained two years ago that there wasn't enough play equipment or shade on the playground.

"It was a pea-gravel lot with two slides, some basketball hoops, benches and cracked macadam. The kids would just run in the field and come back during recess. There was no shade," third-grade teacher Jim Longbotham recalled.

Rather than dismissing the students' complaints, teachers encouraged them to take action and write letters about what they needed.

"There was $16,000 left over from building Duzine Elementary School's playground (also in the New Paltz School District) and we thought we could buy a little equipment with that, but then we started looking at the bigger picture," Longbotham said. The teachers held an assembly and showed the students potential playground equipment. [More]

Learn how to take action for play by becoming a Playmaker!

By Sam Penrod
KSL News
June 18th, 2008

A humanitarian-aid project is bringing electric light to an area of the world that has never seen electricity before.

It was coordinated by some BYU engineering students who just returned from Ghana where the project was completed.

The students helped a Utah company that designed a small power generator. It's powered by school children as they play on playground equipment that they've also never seen before.

The village in Ghana has its first merry-go-round, but more importantly, the first electricity. The power is generated by young children playing on the playground. [More]

Improve a playground near you by building a bench, painting a mural, or adding another side project.

By JEFFREY KLUGER
TIME Magazine
June 12, 2008

Excerpt:

Obese boys and girls are already starting to develop the illnesses of excess associated with people in their 40s and beyond: heart disease, liver disease, diabetes, gallstones, joint breakdown and even brain damage as fluid accumulation inside the skull leads to headaches, vision problems and possibly lower IQs. A staggering 90% of overweight kids already have at least one avoidable risk factor for heart disease, such as high cholesterol or hypertension. Type 2 diabetes is now being diagnosed in teens as young as 15. Health experts warn that the current generation of children may be the first in American history to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents'. "The more overweight you are, the worse all of these things will be for you," says acting U.S. Surgeon General Steven Galson. And, warns Seeley, the worse they are likely to stay: "When you're talking about morbidly obese kids, zero percent will grow up to be normal-weight adults." [More]

Discuss the obesity epidemic in our Forums.

By Molly Walsh
Burlington (Vt.) Free Press
June 16, 2008

WATERBURY — In the bright morning sunshine, three little girls scampered across a dirt path, jumped on boulders, twirled on the stage of an amphitheater and perched under an apple tree to make dandelion and red clover necklaces.

Nearby, several children played a make-believe game best described as “lost baby runs from voracious tiger” that had them running from a large sand pit to a small “cave.” All the action took place on the new school playground at Thatcher Book Primary School.

The rustic facility snugged against a hillside next to the old brick school will be officially dedicated today and perhaps be viewed as a trendsetter. The fun zone is a so-called natural playground designed to eschew plastic and metal in favor of more earthy features that are supposed to help children connect with nature and use their imaginations. [More]

Discuss natural playspaces in our Forums.

By Eve Pearlman
San Jose Mercury News
June 16, 2006

Excerpt:

Media coverage of accidents and crimes, says Stearns, amplifies our fears and distorts our perception of risk — and too, he says, more and more parents consider even the remotest possibility of harm to be unacceptable.

"We've developed this phobia about taking any risk at all," says Stearns. "Kids used to break their arms and we'd say, 'Oh well' and sign the cast. But now when they do, we assume as a society that if things had just been properly organized this bad thing wouldn't have happened."

As a parent of two young children, I know the worry. A car could hop the curb. A stranger might assault my child! But I also dislike assuming the worst in each person and every circumstance. And I regret that my kids have so little space in which to grow independent, to learn how to assess a stranger at a glance, to navigate the streets of our neighborhood and to learn to trust their own judgments and perceptions. They will need these skills to thrive as adults.

"The funny thing is that there are areas we as society tolerate a great deal of risk," says Stearns, citing the minimal instruction new drivers receive and the relatively young age at which kids in the United States get driver's licenses. Traffic accidents are by far the biggest risk to children of all ages yet we speed merrily along at 70 or 75 on multi-lane freeways. [More]

Discuss this article in the Forums.

Toddlers and nannies rely on Grant Park playground doomed by museum
BY MARK J. KONKOL
Chicago Sun-Times
June 13, 2008

Before naptime Thursday morning, a bunch of New Eastside nannies lugged local rugrats to the Grant Park playground that Mayor Daley bullied the City Council into letting his wealthy friends replace with their pet project -- the relocated Chicago Children's Museum.

Nanny Emily pushed little Keira on the swings. Nanny Marta fed raspberries to a boy who likes to be called "Super Spy Man." And Nanny Ashley watched tiny Ines ride the horsey.

This is where New Eastside nannies let the little ones run around like maniacs until they're too exhausted to holler anymore.

There are swings and slides and monkey bars on a bouncy rubber mat ringed by shade trees.

"We come here every day, sometimes twice a day -- before and after naps," Nanny Ashley says. "It's perfect. Ines gets to interact with other kids. She's an only child. We know all the other kids. They come every day, too. It's like a big playgroup over here. Lots of nannies."

In September, New Eastside moms were miffed at Daley for accusing their high-rise neighborhood of protesting the kids' museum in Grant Park because they're elitist bigots who hate kids. [More]

Help save play in your community by becoming a Playmaker!

The Philadelphia Inquirer
June 13, 2008
By Jeff Shields

The sparkling new George C. Pelbano Playground and the Northeast Older Adult Center are impressive additions to Bustleton Avenue, where Pelbano's soaring, arched gym roof lends luster to Rhawnhurst's busy thoroughfare, and seniors flock to a facility they've been awaiting for more than a decade.

But like other beauties before it, the $7.6 million complex - the most expensive recreation project in city history - has broken many hearts. It has turned neighbor against neighbor, and promises to keep lawyers employed for years.

A project that was to be completed in a year took more than three, and is only now staggering to a partial grand opening Monday. The project did not go over budget, but what it saved in cash it lost in time.

There is no shortage of blame, bad luck or cruel ironies in the story of the Pelbano Playground/Northeast Older Adult Center. [More]

The KaBOOM! Road Map can help keep your project on track and on time. Learn how!

By Jessica Harding
Schenectady (N.Y.) Gazette Reporter
June 12, 2008

AMSTERDAM — The children at Clover Patch Preschool patiently waited Wednesday for a chance to play on their new playground, staring at the bright red structure in quiet anticipation.

When their teachers and staff finally let them loose, the 3- and 4-year-olds attacked the playground, running, sliding and climbing on the apparatus behind the school building attached to St. Mary’s Institute.

The CloverPatch Preschool is one of several preschools under the direction of the Center for Disability Services and educates 3- through 5-year-olds with special needs, along with typically developing children.

The Amsterdam site was the last of the CFDS-affiliated sites to have a playground. Before the new equipment, children played with large plastic toys, including a car and an airplane. [More]

Learn about addressing disability in playspaces with our helpful FAQ.

Students had their say in look of new Community Day playground
By Susan Jacobs
Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh

When students return to Community Day this fall, they will have a new playground, with equipment hand-selected by students.

On June 2, sixth-graders at the school watched a video from Landscape Structure, a company that produces sophisticated playground equipment under the label Evos.

...

The students were impressed with the options available through Evos.

"They were oohing and aahing when they saw it," said Dubner.

...

Parents and community members have been raising money for the playground and the Grable Foundation and KaBOOM awarded a $10,000 grant to the project. In all, some $30,000 has already been raised, and another $5,000 is still needed.  [More]

Read more about EVOS.

By Joe Byrnes
Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner
June 11, 2008

Ocala's decision to raze All Children's Playground came as a shock to me because I was used to seeing it during walks at Tuscawilla Park.

Often I'd see kids climbing in its towers and walks, always, it seemed, under the watchful eye of an adult.

I don't doubt the demolition was necessary. Ocala Public Works Director John Zobler said that - after 18 years - the elaborate wooden playground had become unsafe. The supports had rotted and, sooner or later, a child was going to fall or get hurt by a collapsing piece of the structure.

It disappeared quickly and with little advance notice, almost as if the community could care less. [More]

Does your neighborhood need a new playground? Check out our Roadmap to guide you through the process!

It's been a difficult year for Jacob Asher.

The 4-year-old was critically injured last April in a two-car accident that killed his mother and two brothers.

He broke his jaw in two places, broke his legs and fractured his neck.

But Jacob fought through his physical injuries, and a Waukee-based organization has built Jacob a new play space in the backyard of his Earlham house so he can get outside and play again.

Project Dream Space unveiled the 3,000-square-foot play area to Jacob and his father Eric on Sunday afternoon.

The play area features a sandbox, a two-story clubhouse and a memorial garden dedicated to his mother and brothers.

Jacob went straight for the sandbox, his father said.

"He was really excited, he really was -- he was really surprised," Eric Asher said. [More]

Learn how to organize volunteers to build a playground near you

On May 24th, 2008 more than 400 people joined together as a community to build a safe, innovative and beautiful park for children in San Pancho, Mexico. This project, known as RECICLA PARQUE (Recycled Park), relied on KaBOOM! tools, such as the online Toolkit, while creating an innovative, green playspace.

One of the principles of the RECICLA PARQUE project was to use recycled materials in the construction of the park and to teach sustainable building techniques. Groups of volunteers built walls from glass bottles, walls that used plastic bottles filled with sand as “bricks,” and benches from sacks filled with dirt and covered with a mixture of concrete and paper, a technique known as “papercrete” and experimental in the San Pancho climate. They sanded and painted old CFE spools to use as tables, refurbished found iron works to use as doors on the kids' area, and cut tires to use for swingsets and other play equipment.

Build Day was an amazing example of a community in action. Parents, teachers, kids, business owners, passers-by, San Pancho residents and groups and organizations from Bucerias, Sayulita, Guadalajara, Punta de Mita, Colorado and California joined together to create a park for the children of San Pancho in an action of solidarity and goodwill that left the organizers "thankful, inspired and awed." [More]
 
Check out the KaBOOM! Toolkit.

Rise in U.S. childhood obesity flattens out
June 1, 2008
New Scientist
 
The childhood obesity epidemic in the U.S. may have peaked, but its detrimental effects on health have barely begun.

The proportion of U.S. children and adolescents who were unusually heavy for their height rose by about 20 per cent from 1999 to 2004, but didn't change between 2003 and 2006. These latest figures are from Cynthia Ogden and colleagues at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Hyattsville, Maryland, who surveyed 8000 young people (Journal of the American Medical Association, vol 299, p 2401).

Even so, there's no reason to celebrate yet, as the epidemic has peaked at worrying levels: 32 per cent of U.S. children are overweight and 16 per cent are obese.

"The public health toll of childhood obesity will continue to mount," warn Cara Ebbeling and David Ludwig, obesity researchers at the Children's Hospital Boston, in an editorial accompanying the study. "It can take many years for an obese child to develop life-threatening complications." [More]

Discuss childhood obesity in the Forums

Cutting-edge park aimed at fighting childhood obesity
By Patrick Knox
Basingstoke (U.K.) Gazette
June 9, 2008

A PROPOSED outdoor sports park in Chineham will feature cutting-edge technology in a bid to fight teenage obesity.

As part of a £495,000 facility earmarked for Binfields Farm Lane, state-of-the-art rides have been chosen to get the "PlayStation generation" outside and active again.

Speaking at a meeting of Chineham Parish Council, borough council designer Steve Welsh said the Binfields Games Area would include features that would be both challenging and fun, while encouraging exercise.

He said: "We have consulted with young people to see what activities they wanted and this is what we came up with.

"It will be a positive addition to Chineham, providing something innovative and interesting for young people." [More]

Discuss childhood obesity in the Forums

New York's Big Backyard
By HELENE STAPINSKI
The New York Times
June 6, 2008

GOING to our local playground in Brooklyn can be painful. When friends are there, it's great. But it's hard to make small talk with people I barely know about high-tech strollers, whose kid is taking French lessons (mine are not), the pros and cons of gifted-and-talented programs -- the usual nightmare urban-mommy conversation.

So, come late spring, my children and I hit the pavement, and the subway, in search of the anonymity for which New York is famous. Since I've spent most of my adult life here, I know many neighborhoods intimately and use the playgrounds as an excuse to give my children an extended tour of the town they call home. Some of the playgrounds we've stumbled upon by accident, and some I know from past lives. [More]

Explore playgrounds in your area with the KaBOOM! Playspace Finder!

Bedford school vandals strike again
June 02, 2008
Monroe (Mich.) News

For the second weekend in a row, vandals caused extensive damage to a Bedford Township school.

This time, Monroe Road Elementary School was targeted and more than $1,300 in damage was done to the playground.

...

Between 1:50 and 2 a.m. Sunday, a witness saw flames at the elementary school playground, 7979 Monroe Rd., and called authorities. A sign had been set on fire.

The vandals also cut the chains to about 20 swings and burned a downspout on the school building. Detective Tom Redmond said the culprits used an aerosol spray can and charcoal fluid to ignite the fires.

The culprits used spray paint to write vulgar language on the equipment and also wrote such things as "Jamieson was here" and "Tyler was here." [More]

Discuss playground vandalism prevention in our Forums.

Watch the video here:

Learn more about Imagination Playground

A design that fights playground politics
By Eric Peterson
Chicago Daily Herald Staff
May 31, 2008

Teachers and staff at Lakeview Elementary in Hoffman Estates know recess is meant for exercise, not playground conflicts.

But they'd searched fruitlessly for a way to encourage the former and discourage the latter among students.

Then a staff member whose own child attends school in St. Charles heard of a program in use there that she thought might just be of help at Lakeview.

The Peaceful Playgrounds program was designed about 12 years ago by Melinda Bossenmeyer, director of the College of Education at California State University.

...

"One of the things we're looking for is to impact as many kids as possible," she said. The playground's design "eliminates competition and fosters teamwork. We see that as important."

The playground games -- painted onto the blacktop by parent and staff volunteers -- were chosen based on an assessment of Lakeview's available space.

Unveiled just a couple of weeks ago, the playground already has been deemed a success by faculty and students alike, Brodie said. [More]

Learn more about Peaceful Playgrounds

Discuss the values you learned on the playground in our Forums

New Panther Run Elementary playground offers muscle-building fun
By Lia Lehrer
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
June 1, 2008

WEST LAKE WORTH -- The new playground at Panther Run Elementary School allows children to squeeze some exercise into their day.

...

The new playground, manufactured by Alabama-based GameTime, consists of a treehouse, monkey bars, slides, a rock-climbing wall and a spinner. These components stress upper-body and cardiovascular exercises, D'Aoust said.

Students at Panther Run, 10775 Lake Worth Road, are reacting well to the new equipment. Nya Jones, 9, of Wellington, said she used to jump rope at recess. Now she heads to the playground every day.

"In the old one, people would fight over the slide," Nya said, "but now, there's more room for everyone to play."

Classmate Jared McKean, 9, of Wellington, recognizes the benefit of the upper-body workout. "I have a big brother," he said. "Sometimes it can be rough, so I need to be strong." [More]

Read more about the benefits of play

Reynolds building more playgrounds in Middle East
Former forestry worker hopes to make a difference for Afghan children
By Jesse Ferreras
Pique Newsmagazine
May 28, 2008

Iraq, Gaza and the West Bank are known as some of the world’s most dangerous places, but for Whistler-based philanthropist Keith Reynolds, they present an opportunity to make a positive difference.

Reynolds, a former forestry worker, founded Playground Builders in 2006. It’s a Whistler-based organization that forms partnerships with non-governmental organizations to establish children’s playgrounds in conflict zones. The organization has established 20 playgrounds to date in places such as Baghdad, Jenin and Ramallah and is now looking to establish another in Afghanistan.

Reynolds and two others left for the Middle East this week to check on existing playgrounds and survey for new ones — to be built with funds raised earlier this year in Whistler. When they return they’ll be raising more money for the 10 new playgrounds they’ve committed to build.

Each playground is built using local workers, in an effort to reduce unemployment and inject money into the region. [More]

Learn more about how to build a playground

York's ready to play to get city grant funds
Being a 'Playful City' could lead to grant money for playgrounds.
By ANGIE MASON
York (Pa.) Daily Record/Sunday News
May 29, 2008

York could receive grant money by showing the city is serious about playtime.

A new task force is aimed at making York a "Playful City," a designation that could lead to grant funding for playground improvements.

The recognition is offered through the nonprofit KaBOOM!, a group aimed at making sure every child has a playground within walking distance.

York Mayor John Brenner learned about the organization when he helped the group build a playground in New Orleans last year.

His wife, Adrienne, is leading York's effort.

She remembered watching with their son, Sam, 4, as workers removed the seesaw from Lincoln Park a few years ago.

"It was so sad," she said. [More]

Learn more about Playful City USA

Kid ends skateboard shortage in Oakland park
By Meredith May
San Francisco Chronicle
May 29, 2008

East Oakland kids have found refuge at a new skateboard park behind Rainbow Recreation Center.

But they've also found a severe skateboard shortage.

They must wait their turn for one of six skateboards, and skate in 30-minute shifts so everyone gets a turn.

"We're trying to give them alternatives, because these neighborhoods can be rough around here, but it would be better if we had more boards," said center Director Horace Houston.

When 12-year-old skater Quentin Favia of San Francisco read about their situation in The Chronicle, he felt an incredible sense of injustice. [More]

View photos from the Oakland skate park build

Thieves Steal School Playground Equipment
KPTV News (Portland, Oregon)
May 28, 2008

KELSO, Wash. -- A large piece of metal playground equipment was disassembled and stolen from Barnes Elementary School by thieves Monday night, the school's principal said.

Kelso police said someone stole the metal jungle gym from Barnes Elementary School on Monday night.

The school principal, Brenda Ward, said whoever took the jungle gym likely spent a lot of time planning it out.

She said the thief took the entire structure apart and then hauled it away -- piece by piece.

All that's left in its place is bark dust. [More]

County to Boost Security at Sully Elementary After Fire
By Bill Brubaker
Washington Post
May 29, 2008

The Loudoun County school system plans to beef up security around Sully Elementary in Sterling after a fire that damaged part of the school's sprawling volunteer-built playground, known as Discovery Park.

"We'll be adding additional security cameras as soon as possible," said Wayde B. Byard, the school system's spokesman.

The fire Friday night damaged a 20-by-20-foot area of the 11,000-square-foot playground, which is used by thousands of Loudoun children. Discovery Park, which opened in October 2006, is billed as an interactive playground that combines educational discovery with old-fashioned play. The playground has components that teach science, history, art, health, math and music. [More]

New Arsenic Testing Ends Shutdown at Fort Reno Park
Officials Call Earlier Results a 'False Positive'
By Paul Duggan
Washington Post
May 29, 2008

Officials reopened Fort Reno Park in Northwest Washington yesterday, saying recent extensive tests have found no unsafe levels of arsenic in the soil there.

The 33-acre field, a popular site for sports and concerts in the Tenleytown neighborhood, was abruptly closed to the public May 14 after the U.S. Geological Survey said soil samples showed arsenic levels of as much as 1,100 parts per million -- about 25 times the limit of 43 parts per million set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But those test results turned out to be "a false positive," officials said yesterday.

"We are happy to say that our initial report in this case was incorrect," said Michael G. Gauldin, a spokesman for the Geological Survey, who joined Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and other officials at a news conference at the park. [More]

Learn more about soil testing