soil; light orange: 125-200 ppm; yellow: 75-135 ppm)
Summary:
Urban gardens today are becoming almost at popular as Victory gardens were during the World War II era to survive food shortages. Gabriel Filippelli, professor of earth sciences at the School of Science at Indiana Universtiy, warns that urban soil used for gardening may be tainted by lead pollution. "Most surface contamination in urban settings like Baltimore, Brooklyn, Detroit or Indianapolis is from harmful metals, especially lead, and tends to be found near roadways, older homes or lead smelters. Sources of contamination can be automobile exhaust, degraded paint, tire and vehicle debris, industrial emissions or other products of human technology," says Filippelli. He suggests that urban gardeners to determine the potential lead pollution risk in their gardens by proximity busy streets, major roadways, freeways, dilapidated painted structures or older industrial facilities. Gardens with no or low levels of contamination (200 parts per million (ppm)) can be abundantly planted. Gardens with medium levels of contamination (200-500 ppm) are recommended to be planted in raised bed settings, and mulching between beds to reduce the risks of tracking lead-rich soil onto the pots or into the home is recommended. Gardens at high risk level (500+ ppm) should only grow tall fruit plants, not root vegetables and leafy greens like lettuce due to the difficulty of cleaning the produce before consumption.
Reflection:
I think that lead contaminating our soil is a very big issue. Consumption of lead can very well lead to lead poisoning which comes along with symptoms like head ache, abdominal pain, memory loss, kidney failure, and weakness, tingling, or pain in the extremities. If any of these people are growing their produce with the intentions of selling it could cause big legal issues, similar to when toy manufacturers in China were sued for using paint with lead in it on their toys, which the children were eating and getting lead poisoning from.
Questions:
1)Do you think that it's possible for soil around the world, not just near cities, to be contaminated with lead and we don't know it?
2) If you were an urban gardener, what precautions would you take to make sure your soil did not had lead in it?
3) Considering that consuming only a little lead is not terrible for you, would you feel comfortable eating a vegetable grown in a garden with low lead levels?
This article is very shocking to me because I did not realize what a huge threat this could be to our health. As a small town of Horsham, we are not really effected by something like this. However regarding the future, this could start to be a huge problem for us as well.
ReplyDelete2) If i was an urban gardener, I would preform various testing on my soil to check that there was no lead in it. These tests would be extensive because if there was lead found in the soil, it could mean collapse of the company and various legal issues.
This is a shocking issue because this issue could very quickly affect many more people. Imagine this lead infested soil running off into our water supplies. Suddenly water supplies believed to be perfectly fine need to have lead filtered out. Something needs to be done before it starts to affect more people.
ReplyDelete3) I would not feel safe eating anything grown in soil contaminated with lead. It may be OK in small amounts, but what if you eat from that garden often? Then complications may arise.
I think that this is very bad and devastating to many people. I know that many people rely on urban gardening for their food source and for entertainment. Obviously, if lead poisoning is found in the soil, then the plants grown would not be a safe food source. This could also cause more people in cities to buy produce at grocery stores, which could increase prices around the country.
ReplyDelete3. I would not feel comfortable at all because I would not want to take the risk of consuming even a small amount of lead.