BATON ROUGE - The beleaguered Capitol Lakes were formally added to a list of sites being prioritized by the federal government to receive funding to help decontaminate them.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that the three lakes were added to the National Priorities List, a collection of environmental projects seeking to address dangerous contamination at sites across the nation. The EPA is also proposing that the federal government add the Exide Baton Rouge site on Brooklawn Drive — a former recycling center where toxins were found in the soil —  to that same list.

The lakes have been contaminated with toxins for decades, and recent tests of the water last year showed it also contained traces of arsenic, lead and another chemical linked to cancer. 

The EPA says that it only adds a site to the list "based on a scientific determination of risks to people and the environment."

“Residents of heavily industrialized communities like Baton Rouge should not have to live with higher levels of water, air and soil contamination,” Regional Administrator Dr. Earthea Nance said in a statement. “With historic levels of funding through the Biden-Harris Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, sites like Capitol Lakes and Exide Baton Rouge are getting the focus they deserve to prevent harms to people’s health and the environment.”

Officials have known since the 70s that the lakes — located near State Capitol and Governor's Mansion — contained toxic chemicals. That contamination has also spread to the fish found in the water.

You can read more on the determination here.