A dangerous discovery unearthed in Keyport this week.

The New York New Jersey Baykeeper found suspicious black rocks that ultimately tested positive for lead.

Questions are now being raised about where the material came from and what the threat to public health might be.

Local leaders are demanding that state and federal authorities investigate and act.

Ted Goldberg has the story.

People walk the dogs here all the time.

Keyport Shores are generally a nice place to walk, but a recent discovery has locals concerned.

This is all lead.

This stuff is.

Outlet walk, move to keyport ten years ago and is home is a few hundred feet from where rock looking objects have been found that are testing positive for lead.

It's got beaches is sky a lot of fishing going on and stuff like that.

So anything that's polluting the water gets us concerned.

A lot of locals know it because they walk their dogs or they all walk their children, or they just come and sit out here because it's so calm and there's there's not a lot going on here.

I found this when I was out.

Monitor violations on the Marine site, which is right behind this beach.

Greg RAYMO leads New York, New Jersey Baykeeper.

He noticed them in late June and says lab results have confirmed that they have led.

We know there's thousands and thousands of pieces like like this and much smaller that gets into small amounts that is ingestible by wildlife fish.

You may eat the fish when you're waiting in the water and you splash, you may you know, you may be ingesting some of that.

He thinks their lead slag or a waste product from industrial sites decades ago.

Well there's a Superfund site four miles away in Lawrence Harbor that has tested positive for lead remote doesn't think that's the culprit.

We believe that it was dumped here.

We don't know how far it extends beyond what we've been able to see visibly, which is a small, relatively small area.

We don't know where it came from.

The DEP and EPA are investigating and will possibly do their own testing to see if the shoreline needs to be blocked off to the public.

I imagine that testing will be part of the next steps, but it's too soon to say exactly what the next steps will be on the overall timeline.

But we did commit to getting back to everybody very quickly.

Leaders at the local and federal level have several questions.

Has it been here for years?

Did it did was it planted now?

Was it dumped?

Now we don't know.

So they have to give us the information for us to say, Is it safe for people to be walking the beach.

Once we find out the origin?

To put together a plan to contain it.

Prevent people from coming into contact with it and then, you know, moving towards a cleanup.

Remaud was curious why the DEP did not raise alarm bells while investigating the former era Marine site, a brownfield site very close to where the slag showed up.

They may not have known what lead slag looks like, but a question is how deep an investigation DEP is doing on to that site.

We asked the DEP for comment but did not receive one before our deadline.

Meanwhile, the pearl of the Bay Shore will anxiously wait to see the next steps in port.

I'm Ted Goldberg.

NJ Spotlight News.