The ASARCO smelting company smokestack, erected in 1917, was at the time a 571-foot tall symbol of economic prosperity and booming business in the developing city of Tacoma. The copper smelting site on Ruston’s shore in Puget Sound brought jobs and wealth to the area, but with it, a price we are still paying for today. Over the course of the almost century the plant was operational, it had been pumping, along with other toxic materials, heavy metals like arsenic and lead directly into the air where it then settled into the surrounding soil and water of the greater Tacoma area. The smokestack was demolished in 1985, but over 30 years later there is still a toxic level of heavy metals in the soil. The city of Tacoma takes measures to warn new Tacoma homeowners about how to mitigate any increased levels of exposure to toxic materials in their soil, but must also take more drastic steps to protect users of publicly-owned land.

In 2007, 32 of 191 parks examined by the Department of Ecology showed, and it was determined that the parks required action due to toxic levels of arsenic and lead. Vassault Park in Tacoma is an example of just one of these parks. Located just a few miles from the former ASARCO plant, the soil of the park’s large baseball and soccer fields was found to contain roughly 30 times the natural arsenic soil concentration. As such, the city of Tacoma began the 2.5 million dollar project of resurfacing the park in 2014. The project was completed in 2015. Similar expensive projects have been completed in the parks of the greater Tacoma area, including further testing at one of the area's largest parks: Point Defiance. Despite this urban upheaval, there are still unsafe levels of toxic materials in the homes and neighborhoods of Tacoma today. Cleaning our city of heavy metals is a project that has been in the works for the past 30 years. Awareness and safety measures continues to expand, but it is most likely one that the problem will continue to affect residents for years.