Lead safety guidance lacking for urban farmers in many major US cities
“There are so many benefits from urban agriculture, and it should not be an added route of exposure for communities that already face higher exposure [to contamination] than other communities,” said Lupolt.
By American Geophysical Union
Sep 27, 2022
Excerpt:
Urban gardens and farms are on the rise in the U.S., but urban soils are sometimes contaminated from legacy pollution and industrial use. Despite this risk, there is little guidance for people growing food in urban soils on what levels of lead are safe, and existing policies vary widely between cities and states, as a new study highlights.
Lead, and other potentially toxic elements, are of concern in soils that are used to grow food because plants can incorporate those harmful elements into their roots, stems, leaves and fruits, which are then eaten. Exposure to even low levels of lead, primarily through ingestion, can cause health problems such as heart disease and neurological dysfunction, and lead is especially harmful to children, who are still developing.
Currently, the most commonly cited safety level for lead in soil is 400 milligrams of lead per kilogram of soil. But that value, established in 1994 by the Environmental Protection Agency, represents the threshold at which an investigation for residential soil cleanup would occur, not a threshold for safe food production. There are no federal regulations defining safe soil contamination levels for growing food.
The new study, published in GeoHealth, reviewed soil safety policies from the 40 most populous cities in the U.S., plus two additional cities (Minneapolis and Pittsburgh) that the researchers knew had soil safety policies.
