A review of environmental lead exposure and management in Mount Isa, Queensland

Forbes, Malcolm; Taylor, Mark Patrick

doi:10.1515/reveh-2015-0011

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The findings of this study support recommendations made by Forbes & Taylor [ 36 ] for a more proactive approach to reducing environmental lead exposure in Mount Isa. This should include the following elements: annual universal blood lead level testing of children followed by publicly reported results; culturally appropriate follow-up and intervention for children who are identified with blood lead levels ≥5 µg/dL; stack and fugitive emissions reductions; and other environmental strategies to reduce exposure to lead including remediation of soil contamination in children’s play and residential areas.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…In an annual report, the Living with Lead Alliance “recommends that all Mount Isa residents children and adults know their BLLs” [ 34 ], and the Commissioner for Children and Young People has also called for increased testing [ 22 ]. The recently published ‘Lead Pathways Study-Air’ [ 35 ] also stressed the importance of increased screening, as have other public health and environmental experts [ 36 ]. Despite the reported increase in testing in the past year, an important improvement over other years, testing rates in Mount Isa remain low.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Pilot Study of Children’s Blood Lead Levels in Mount Isa, Queensland

Green

Sullivan

Cooper

et al. 2017

IJERPH

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Mount Isa, Queensland, is one of three Australian cities with significant lead emissions due to nonferrous mining and smelting. Unlike the two other cities with lead mines or smelters, Mount Isa currently has no system of annual, systematic, community-wide blood lead level testing; and testing rates among Indigenous children are low. In previous screenings, this group of children has been shown to have higher average blood lead levels than non-Indigenous children. The first aim of this study was to assess whether parents and children would participate in less invasive, rapid point-of-care capillary testing. The second aim was to measure blood lead levels among a range of children that roughly reflected the percentage of the Indigenous/non-Indigenous population. This pilot study is based on a convenience sample of children between the ages of 12 and 83 months who were recruited to participate by staff at a Children and Family Centre. Over three half-days, 30 children were tested using capillary blood samples and the LeadCare II Point-of-Care testing system. Rapid point-of-care capillary testing was well tolerated by the children. Of 30 children tested, 40% (n = 12) had blood lead levels ≥5 µg/dL and 10% had levels ≥10 µg/dL. The highest blood lead level measured was 17.3 µg/dL. The percentage of children with blood lead levels ≥5 µg/dL was higher among Indigenous children compared to non-Indigenous (64.2% compared to 18.8%) as was the geometric mean level (6.5 (95% CI, 4.7, 9.2) versus 2.4 (95% CI, 1.8, 3.1)), a statistically significant difference. Though based on a small convenience sample, this study identified 12 children (40%) of the sample with blood lead levels ≥5 µg/dL. Due to historical and ongoing heavy metal emissions from mining and smelting in Mount Isa, we recommend a multi-component program of universal blood lead level testing, culturally appropriate follow-up and intervention for children who are identified with blood lead levels ≥5 µg/dL. We further recommend focused outreach and assistance to the Indigenous community, and further control of emissions and remediation of existing environmental lead contamination in children's play and residential areas.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Pilot Study of Children’s Blood Lead Levels in Mount Isa, Queensland

Green

Sullivan

Cooper

et al. 2017

IJERPH

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Marine Contaminants of Emerging Concern

Mortimer

Batley

2023

Springer Textbooks in Earth Sciences, Geography and Environment

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Identifying and listing substances or materials as contaminants of emerging concern(CECs) is not a simple task, and for the marine environment specifically is a challenge for environmental regulators, managers and researchers worldwide (Box 13.1) (Tornero V, and Hanke G (2017) Potential chemical contaminants in the marine environment: An overview of main contaminant lists. Office of the European Union Publications, Luxembourg. Available at: http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC108964/potential_chemical_contaminants_in_the_marine.pdf [Accessed 19 August2019].). Some of these agencies have widely different definitions of what a CEC actually is (Halden J Hazard Mater 282:2–9, 2015).

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Environmental justice analyses may hide inequalities in Indigenous people’s exposure to lead in Mount Isa, Queensland

Cooper

Green

Sullivan

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Distributive environmental justice studies frequently identify how ethnic minorities and communities of low socio-economic status (SES) are disproportionately likely to live in areas with an elevated risk of exposure to pollution. Few distributive justice studies have been conducted in Australia to explore whether this relationship is relevant to rural mining communities. In the remote mining city of Mount Isa, studies have found higher geometric mean blood lead levels (BLLs) among Indigenous children compared to non-Indigenous children. However, there is a lack of recent BLL data to determine conclusively if Indigenous children in Mount Isa are disproportionately exposed to lead pollution. We employed a common distributive environmental justice analysis approach to determine if Indigenous residents are disproportionately likely to live in areas with elevated soil lead concentrations. We analysed soil samples from 49 of 51 census areas at the Statistical Area 1 (SA1) level and measured the statistical correlation between soil lead concentration and the percentage of residents living in each SA1 who were of Indigenous status using Kendall's tau and linear regression. We found little evidence of an association between soil lead concentration and either Indigenous status or SES, indicating that Indigenous and low-SES residents are not disproportionately likely to live in areas with elevated concentrations of soil lead. The results of this study, along with prior research on mining emissions and housing quality in Mount Isa, indicate that elevated BLLs among Indigenous children may be due to low-SES increasing the risk of exposure as a result of lower quality housing. Actions by governing and mining bodies to address children's elevated BLLs in Mount Isa should give greater attention to risk factors related to SES. Furthermore, distributive environmental justice research must account for disparities in exposure which are not the result of disproportionate proximity to polluting sources.

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A review of environmental lead exposure and management in Mount Isa, Queensland

Cited by 3 publications

References 14 publications

A Pilot Study of Children’s Blood Lead Levels in Mount Isa, Queensland

A Pilot Study of Children’s Blood Lead Levels in Mount Isa, Queensland

Marine Contaminants of Emerging Concern

Environmental justice analyses may hide inequalities in Indigenous people’s exposure to lead in Mount Isa, Queensland

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