Use of historical mapping to understand sources of soil-lead contamination: Case study of Santa Ana, CA

Rubio, Juan Manuel; Masri, Shahir; Torres, Ivy R; Sun, Yi; Villegas, Keila; Flores, Patricia; Logue, Michael D.; Reyes, Abigail; LeBrón, Alana M. W.; Wu, Jun

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2022.113478

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 32 publications

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“…That residential land-use showed higher lead and a greater anthropogenic footprint may be due to irrigation activities that helped reduce resuspension of soil particles by wind and other physical disturbances over time (gradually carrying them away from a particular site). This hypothesis is supported by our recent work that showed average soil-lead concentrations to be higher in residential environments where irrigation was not present [42].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Use of Radioisotope Ratios of Lead for the Identification of Historical Sources of Soil Lead Contamination in Santa Ana, California

Masri

LeBrón

Logue

et al. 2022

Toxics

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Lead (Pb) is an environmental neurotoxicant that has been associated with a wide range of adverse health conditions, and which originates from both anthropogenic and natural sources. In California, the city of Santa Ana represents an urban environment where elevated soil lead levels have been recently reported across many disadvantaged communities. In this study, we pursued a community-engaged research approach through which trained “citizen scientists” from the surrounding Santa Ana community volunteered to collect soil samples for heavy metal testing, a subset of which (n = 129) were subjected to Pb isotopic analysis in order to help determine whether contamination could be traced to specific and/or anthropogenic sources. Results showed the average 206Pb/204Pb ratio in shallow soil samples to be lower on average than deep samples, consistent with shallow samples being more likely to have experienced historical anthropogenic contamination. An analysis of soil Pb enrichment factors (EFs) demonstrated a strong positive correlation with lead concentrations, reinforcing the likelihood of elevated lead levels being due to anthropogenic activity, while EF values plotted against 206Pb/204Pb pointed to traffic-related emissions as a likely source. 206Pb/204Pb ratios for samples collected near historical urban areas were lower than the averages for samples collected elsewhere, and plots of 206Pb/204Pb against 206Pb/207 showed historical areas to exhibit very similar patterns to those of shallow samples, again suggesting lead contamination to be anthropogenic in origin, and likely from vehicle emissions. This study lends added weight to the need for health officials and elected representatives to respond to community concerns and the need for soil remediation to equitably protect the public.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%