Confronting legacy lead in soils in the United States: Community-engaged researchers doing undone science

Walls, Dan; Kinchy, Abby; Margalit, Tal; Ramírez‐Andreotta, Mónica D.; Mauro, Salvatore Engel‐Di

doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2021.10.035

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Foundational work has been carried out towards this end: Markus and McBratney (2001) summarized spatial Pb distribution in soils from countries and cities around the world [ 41 ], and Datko-Williams et al (2014) reviewed soil Pb concentrations across 62 cities in 29 US states between 1970 and 2012 [ 42 ]. Soil Pb mapping has occurred in Baltimore, MD [ 43 ], New Orleans, LA [ 25 ], Minneapolis, MN [ 44 ], Oakland, CA [ 45 ], New York City, NY, [ 46 ], Los Angeles, CA [ 47 ], Syracuse, NY [ 48 ], Greensboro, NC [ 49 ], Torino, Italy [ 50 ], London, UK [ 51 ], and nationwide in China [ 52 ]. Walls et al, (2022) analyzed a network of community-engaged researchers working to mitigate exposure to soil Pb [ 53 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lead in Air, Soil, and Blood: Pb Poisoning in a Changing World

Mielke

Gonzales²,

Powell³

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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(1) Background: Leaded petrol became a worldwide vehicle fuel during the 20th century. While leaded petrol was totally banned on 30 August 2021, its lead (Pb) dust legacy remains in the environment as soil Pb. The health impacts of Pb are well known and risks occur when exposures are above zero. The inextricable links between air Pb, soil Pb, and blood Pb are not widely A. Exposure risks continue even after banning leaded petrol and must be explored. (2) Methods: This article evaluates selected examples of temporal measurements of atmospheric Pb and human Pb exposure and the effect of soil Pb on blood Pb. Several search engines were used to find articles on temporal changes in air Pb and human Pb exposures. New Orleans studies provided empirical data on the association between soil Pb and blood Pb. (3) Results: Vehicle Pb emission trends are closely associated with air Pb and blood Pb. Air Pb deposited in soil becomes a reservoir of Pb dust that is known to be remobilized into the atmosphere. (4) Conclusions: The dust from leaded petrol continues to pose major exposure risks to humans. Exogenous sources of Pb in soil and its remobilization into air along with endogenous bone Pb establish the baseline exposure of children and adults. Reducing human exposure to Pb requires novel policies to decrease exogenous contact from the reservoir of Pb in soil and curtailing remobilization of soil Pb into the atmosphere. Mitigating exposure to soil Pb must therefore play a central role in advancing primary prevention.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lead in Air, Soil, and Blood: Pb Poisoning in a Changing World

Mielke

Gonzales²,

Powell³

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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“…Concerned citizens and researchers have been seeking to address these issues from a variety of perspectives, in countries throughout the world. As discussed by Walls et al, (2022), communityengaged projects to test and mitigate exposure to contaminated soils have been filling in the gaps of the environmental regulatory systems in the US. These regulatory systems are not addressing the needs of people who are contending with toxicants in soil 59 .…”

Section: Potential For Recovery Of Pediatric Lead-safe Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting the Lead Out: A Career-Long Perspective on Leaded Gasoline, Dust, Soil, and Proactive Pediatric Exposure Prevention

Mielke

Egendorf²

2023

MRAJ

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This commentary considers the long arc of lead (Pb) poisoning from antiquity to the 21st century. While Pb exposure is commonly attributed to paint or water, this article aims to discuss the underrecognized impacts of air Pb and soil Pb and to address controversial misconceptions related to these exposure sources. The Roman Aristocracy experienced lead poisoning mainly from the ingestion of foods, lead cookware, and lead-contaminated water and wine, but by the 20th century, lead exposure occurred by ingestion and inhalation. The introduction of tetraethyl lead (TEL) additives in gasoline was approved in 1925 in the US and produced an exponential increase in inhalable air lead exhaust particles through the 1970s. These five decades of widespread lead aerosol exposure were enabled by the Lead Industries Association (LIA), which confounded pediatricians, healthcare providers, and government agencies by promoting lead-based paint as the primary agent of childhood lead exposure. Empirical evidence of lead poisoning, environmental exposures, and proactive lead prevention in the general population was impossible until analytical instruments became commonly available for clinical studies and environmental measurements in the 1960s and 1970s. Soil studies in Baltimore, Maryland, beginning in the mid-1970s, indicated that lead particles exhausted from vehicles fueled by leaded gasoline excessively contaminated urban soils compared with non-urban soils. The invisible lead-contaminated air fouled multiple exposure routes via inhalation and ingestion. In addition to misunderstandings about sources of lead exposure, misinformation currently abounds regarding the timeline of banning lead in gasoline. The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) lists the ban as beginning in 1996. The banning of leaded gasoline first occurred in Japan starting in 1972, and after a 1984 Senate Hearing, the US Congress agreed on a rapid phasedown. A US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) timeline confirmed that most leaded gasoline was banned by the end of 1986. Banning leaded gasoline was associated with sharp declines in the US population’s blood lead, which prompted global efforts to ban leaded gasoline. The eventual result was a complete global ban on highway use of leaded gasoline achieved in August 2021. Leaded gasoline is still used in piston-engine aircraft and the US EPA is proceeding to complete the ban on lead additives in fuel. Using precautionary principles to recover lead-contaminated urban environments and prevent new toxicant exposures are essential challenges and opportunities for present and future generations.

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“…In Massachusetts, residential surface soils (RCS-1, defined as soils at or within 500 ft of a residential dwelling, a residentially-zoned property, school, playground, recreational area or park; or within a groundwater resource area) have a regulatory limit of 200 μg/g while the EPA soil benchmark is 400 μg/g for a residential property or on the property of a child-occupied facility (Environmental Protection Agency, 2020; Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, 2020). It is generally accepted that these benchmarks do not reflect our current GeoHealth 10.1029/2023GH000810 understanding of Pb toxicology (Lupolt et al, 2022;Walls et al, 2022). The 2021 US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that the EPA did not appropriately create new regulations regarding lead-based paint or leadsoil hazards (U.S. Court of Appeals, 2021; Walls et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is generally accepted that these benchmarks do not reflect our current GeoHealth 10.1029/2023GH000810 understanding of Pb toxicology (Lupolt et al, 2022;Walls et al, 2022). The 2021 US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that the EPA did not appropriately create new regulations regarding lead-based paint or leadsoil hazards (U.S. Court of Appeals, 2021; Walls et al, 2022). Moreover, only half of the 40 most populous US cities had soil safety policies specific to UA (Lupolt et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Yang,

Hayhow,

Jackman

et al. 2024

GeoHealth

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Compostable materials constitute roughly half of waste generated globally, but only 5% of waste is actually processed through composting, suggesting that expanding compost programs may be an effective way to process waste. Compostable waste, if properly collected and processed, has value‐added end use options including: residential and park landscaping, remediation of brownfield sites, and as growing media in urban agriculture (UA). Since 2001, our lab has partnered with The Food Project, a non‐profit focused on youth leadership development through urban farming. From 2006 to 2022 we collected compost materials that were delivered to the farm from a variety of local sources and analyzed a suite of biogeochemical properties including lead (Pb) concentrations, organic carbon, and grain size distribution. Pb concentrations of Boston's municipal compost always exceeded the current City of San Francisco soil and compost purchase standard (80 μg/g). In 2012 Boston's composting program was halted when it exceeded the 400 μg/g Environmental Protection Agency's Pb in soil benchmark. Urban Pb is geomobile and must be managed to minimize resuspension and transport of fines whose Pb concentration is often elevated compared to bulk compost. Consequently, urban farmers have to source lower Pb compost from suburban suppliers at significantly greater cost. Over a 15 year period and through several city vendor contracts, Pb concentrations in municipal compost remain at levels that warrant continued surveillance and risk assessment.

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Confronting legacy lead in soils in the United States: Community-engaged researchers doing undone science

Cited by 14 publications

References 53 publications

Lead in Air, Soil, and Blood: Pb Poisoning in a Changing World

Lead in Air, Soil, and Blood: Pb Poisoning in a Changing World

Getting the Lead Out: A Career-Long Perspective on Leaded Gasoline, Dust, Soil, and Proactive Pediatric Exposure Prevention

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

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