Assessing Unequal Airborne Exposure to Lead Associated With Race in the USA

Abstract

Legacy sources of lead (Pb) contaminants in soils are underrecognized as a potential source of ongoing airborne Pb exposure to human populations. This is particularly critical to issues of environmental justice, as many urban and near-urban communities have received past soil-Pb contamination, and residences in these areas, particular rental units, may have poor landscape quality allowing soil Pb contamination to readily become resuspended as airborne dust during dry seasons. Focusing on current airborne emissions from facilities as the primary driver of airborne metal exposures underestimates the role of soil Pb. The mischaracterization of the role of legacy sources of metal toxicants improperly influences mitigation efforts because focusing on current sources alone fails to curb the 20th Century history of urban industrial Pb contamination of the soil.One example of this overly narrow focus is found in a paper by Kodros and colleagues (Kodros et al., 2022). Kodros et al. (2022) acquired surface metals and PM2.5 monitoring measurements from the Environmental Protection Agency's Chemical Speciation Network (CSN) (Solomon et al., 2014) and Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) (Malm & Hand, 2007;Solomon et al., 2014). They observed that the ratio of the mean urban-to-nonurban Pb concentration in PM2.5 across the US is 4.3 (95th CI: 3.5-5.3) Furthermore, mean concentrations of atmospheric Pb in highly segregated counties are a factor of 5 (95th CI: 3-8) higher than in well-integrated counties and a factor of 1.3 (95th CI: 1.0-1.7) higher than in moderately segregated counties. The observations in this paper are important and highlight the continued highly elevated atmospheric Pb exposure in racially segregated areas in the United States. But they mischaracterize the known science of Pb exposure sources in these areas and thus argue for policy avenues to mitigate environmental health disparities that don't capture the full suite of Pb sources. We contend that atmospheric Pb concentrations and children's exposure in urban racially segregated areas are unnatural, and a portion originates primarily from the resuspension of legacy lead-contaminated soils; however, we do acknowledge the need to ban leaded avgas use in

Municipal Compost Public Health, Waste Management, and Urban Agriculture: A Decadal Study of Fugitive Pb in City of Boston, Massachusetts, USA

“…Food sovereignty is key to UA and has its foundations in the Black farmers movement, declaring that "we cannot free ourselves until we feed ourselves" (Boggs, 2011). Filippelli & Laidlaw, 2010;Filippelli & Taylor, 2018;Kodros et al, 2022;Laidlaw et al, 2022;Morrison et al, 2013;Muller et al, 2018;Pamuk et al, 1998;Raymond & Brown, 2016;Saikawa & Filippelli, 2021;Yeter et al, 2020). Many studies have found that youth from low-income families in urban areas have an increased risk of exposure to heavy metals, with racial and class disparities resulting in greater exposure burden (Distler & Saikawa, 2020;Filippelli & Laidlaw, 2010;Filippelli & Taylor, 2018;Morrison et al, 2013;Muller et al, 2018;Pamuk et al, 1998;Raymond & Brown, 2016;Saikawa & Filippelli, 2021;Yeter et al, 2020).…”