The Department of Environmental Protection was back in Keyport for a second day removing lead contamination from a public beach along Raritan Bay.

Workers with the DEP were back at the beach near Walnut Street to take advantage of the low tide. They were performing back-breaking work in the high heat of late July, picking up pieces of iron ore slag by hand or with a shovel.

Full buckets of slag were then dumped into a loader, which then dropped the material inside 50-gallon drums. All of it is being loaded onto a truck and eventually tested at another location for its lead content.

It was Greg Remaud, the New York-New Jersey Baykeeper, who found the slag while investigating nearby illegal dumping and a leaking landfill.

“This is really an extraordinary first step,” he said of the cleanup.

Because of the danger that any lead poses within the human body, Remaud was pleased to see such quick work two weeks after reporting the slag to the state DEP.

“Once you get lead and it starts to break down on the beach and people are wading in the water, eating the fish, eating the crabs there,” Remaud said. “You don’t want to ingest any amount.”

The slag may be from the former Aeromarine Plane and Motor Company, once based right alongside the narrow stretch of beach where it was found. That company built the first seaplanes back in 1914, which means the slag may have been on this beach for decades.

The DEP immediately shot down any theories that the slag was from the Superfund site three miles away in Laurence Harbor.

“We would probably see more along the waterway and we haven’t found that or had any calls or complaints with that,” says Keyport Borough Administrator Kim Humphrey. “So, I doubt it’s from the Superfund site.”

This is a small strip of beach along the bay where one can often find people sailing, fishing or collecting shells, which is why there’s a rush to get the lead removed and examined.

“I would just suggest you use caution and I know the mayor wants to make sure the community is safe,” Humphrey added.

Removal is expected to continue on Wednesday morning. Results for testing of lead levels should be known in one to two weeks.