White House East Wing Toxic Debris: Lead and PCBs Found at Public Golf Course

# White House East Wing Toxic Debris: Lead and PCBs Found at Public Golf Course

> **Quick answer:** The National Park Service confirmed in May 2026 that soil at East Potomac Golf Links — a public DC golf course where more than 30,000 cubic yards of White House East Wing demolition debris were dumped — tests positive for lead, chromium, PCBs, pesticides, and petroleum byproducts at levels above laboratory reporting limits. The Interior Department says the project "passed all standards set by law," but the DC Preservation League has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the dumping as unlawful and potentially hazardous.

The White House ballroom project has a new problem, and this one involves public land, public health, and a paper trail that is hard to explain away. Soil testing at the East Potomac Golf Links — the historic public golf course roughly two miles from the White House — has revealed a "cocktail of contaminants" from the demolition of the White House East Wing, including lead, chromium, PCBs, pesticides, and petroleum byproducts.

## What the NPS Report Found

Beginning in October 2025, the National Park Service began transporting excavated soil from the White House East Wing demolition to East Potomac Golf Links as part of the Trump administration's $400 million ballroom renovation project. By April 2026, more than 30,000 cubic yards — equivalent to roughly 810,000 cubic feet — of excavated material had been deposited at the site.

An interim environmental report commissioned by the NPS and conducted by the Virginia-based Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. found the following contaminants in soil samples at the golf course: