For Urban Gardeners, Lead Is a Concern

Just when you thought it was safe (and warm enough) to go outside, stick your hand in the dirt....... from the NY Times
And get your dirt tested!!


May 14, 2009
For Urban Gardeners, Lead Is a Concern
By KATE MURPHY

FRANK MEUSCHKE’S garden, which surrounds the house he rents in Brooklyn, is a bountiful source of tomatoes, snap peas, green beans, peppers, lettuce and multiple varieties of flowers. It is also, as he recently discovered to his dismay, a rich repository of lead. He had his soil tested last month, and the analysis showed more than 90 times the amount of lead expected to occur naturally.

Mr. Meuschke, an artist who specializes in landscape paintings, is well aware of the dangers of lead paint. “You know not to eat while you paint,” he said. And he had suspected that paint scraped off houses in his neighborhood might have left lead residue in the soil over the years. “But I really didn’t expect there to be that much,” he said.

Harmful even at very low doses, lead is surprisingly prevalent and persistent in urban and suburban soil. Dust from lead-tainted soil is toxic to inhale, and food grown in it is hazardous to eat.

Health officials, soil scientists and environmental engineers worry that the increasing popularity of gardening, particularly the urban kind, will put more people at risk for lead poisoning if they don’t protect themselves.

Thanks in part to the influence of the local-food movement and to economic considerations, more households in the United States plan, like the Obamas, to grow their own fruits, vegetables, herbs and berries this year — seven million more households, according to the National Gardening Association, a 19 percent increase over last year.

While the increased physical activity and access to fresh produce promised by this trend are certainly healthy developments, widespread lead contamination means that many people are going to have to do more than wear gloves and sunscreen to garden safely. The presence of lead in soil doesn’t mean gardening is out of the question, but it may require a change in plot design and choice of crops, and soil amendments.

“You won’t know if you’re at risk unless you test your soil,” said Murray McBride, a professor of soil chemistry at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., which because of concerns about lead in community gardens began a free soil-testing program last month in cooperation with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

County extension services as well as local public health departments often offer free soil testing or can recommend schools or companies that do it for a fee. Individuals generally mail dirt in sealed plastic bags for analysis. Mr. Meuschke paid $12 to have his soil tested by the Environmental Sciences Analytic Center at Brooklyn College; some private companies charge as much as $50.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Housing and Urban Development advise (but do not require) remediation if lead levels in soil exceed 400 parts per million in children’s play areas and 1,200 p.p.m. elsewhere. But some states and cities have set much lower limits. For example, 100 p.p.m. is considered hazardous in Minneapolis. In the Netherlands, 40 p.p.m. is unacceptable. Unpolluted soil averages 10 p.p.m. Mr. Meuschke’s soil had lead levels of 939 p.p.m.

Since 2003, hazardous amounts of lead have been documented in backyard and community gardens in New York as well as in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Washington. Lead-laden soil has been found not only in inner city neighborhoods but also suburban areas.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor,” said David Johnson, a professor of environmental chemistry at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, where he has found lead concentrations as high as 65,000 p.p.m. in the yards of upscale homes. “Lead knows no socioeconomic boundaries.”

Excessive lead in soil is the legacy not only of lead paint but also of leaded gasoline, lead plumbing and lead arsenate pesticides. Although these products were outlawed decades ago, their remnants linger in the environment. Lead batteries and automotive parts, particularly wheel balancing weights, are still widely used and are sources of soil contamination.

Soil is likely to contain high levels of lead if it is near any structure built before 1978, when lead-based paint was taken off the market, or if a building of that vintage was ever demolished on the site. Pesticides containing lead were often used on fruit trees, so land close to old orchards is also of concern. And beware of soil around heavily trafficked roadways; it, too, is probably laced with lead. But environmental engineers and soil experts said any place is potentially tainted.

“It’s kind of a dirty secret nobody really knows about because we’re all distracted worrying about lead in toys from China,” said Gabriel Filippelli, a professor of earth science at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis who has published several papers on lead accumulation in soil. His and other research indicates lead levels in people’s blood correspond directly to the amount of lead in the soil where they live.

“We have been unable to identify the threshold of lead exposure at which there is no risk to health,” said Mary Jean Brown, chief of lead poisoning prevention in the Healthy Housing Branch of the federal Centers for Disease Control. “But we know the risk increases with increased exposure.”

Fetuses and small children, because of their rapidly developing nervous systems, are more sensitive to and suffer the most harm from lead exposure. Adverse effects include damage to the brain and nervous system, lower I.Q., behavior problems and slow growth. Adults may suffer cognitive decline, hypertension, nerve disorders, muscle pain and reproductive problems.

If soil is found to have high levels of lead, experts advise covering it with sod. Those who want to grow flowers or edible crops can either replace the contaminated soil or alkalinize it by adding lime or organic matter such as compost. Soil with a pH level above 7 binds with lead, making it less likely to be absorbed by plants and the human body if the dirt is inadvertently inhaled or ingested.

The White House is mixing lime and compost into the soil for its kitchen garden, which according to a National Parks Service analysis has 93 p.p.m. of lead — an amount above background levels but not considered hazardous to children or adults by the E.P.A.’s standards.

Dr. Filippelli recommends planting kitchen gardens with fruiting crops like tomatoes, squash, eggplant, corn and beans because they don’t readily accumulate lead. Lead-leaching crops, he said, include herbs, leafy greens and root vegetables such as potatoes, radishes and carrots. Dirt also clings to these crops, making it hard to wash off and thereby increasing the risk of ingesting lead.

But some experts advise planting greens, specifically Indian mustard and spinach, for a couple of seasons as phytoremediation, or plant-based mitigation, before growing crops intended for food. By growing spinach for three months, researchers at the University of Southern Maine lowered the lead count in one garden by 200 p.p.m. Of course, the lead-leaching crop cannot be eaten or composted and must be disposed of as toxic waste.

A safer approach, particularly in areas where lead levels exceed 400 p.p.m., is to build raised or contained beds lined with landscape fabric and filled with uncontaminated soil. Luckily for Mr. Meuschke, many of his edible crops are in containers or pots filled with dirt bought at nurseries.

But lead dust blowing in the wind or rain splashing off lead-painted structures can sully food grown even in raised beds or containers. Situating gardens away from buildings is therefore a good idea, as is washing produce thoroughly with water containing 1 percent vinegar or 0.5 percent soap.
“It isn’t that you shouldn’t garden if you find lead in the soil, you just have to manage the space,” said Edie Stone, executive director of GreenThumb, a division of the New York City Parks and Recreation Department that supports urban gardening. “You can’t assume what you buy at the grocery store is any safer.” Peanuts anyone?

Letters - Paper bag, plastic bag, bring your own bag, Trader Joe

A recent letter to Trader Joe about their efforts to get people to bring their own shopping bags - feel free to cannibalize and plagiarize -


Hello Trade Joe,
I am writing about TJ's efforts to get people to bring their own bags. At the check out counter recently, the shopper at the next register commented to the cashier that she always brings her bags, has done so since BEFORE the raffle program started and has yet to win the monthly raffle. Overhearing her, I commented that I had just expressed the same thoughts to my cashier!
First off, I suggest TJ discard it's raffle program for people who have brought their own bag and replace it with a program that many other grocers have - 5 cents off per bag used that a shopper brings. Be honest - when I bring my own bag, I am saving TJ money. Yeah I know, TJ's reflects it in the price but the point is you have bought the bags already - bringing my own, I am making your stock of bags last longer, thus directly saving TJ money. A raffle is nice - but at 4 bags per week, I would save over $10 per year. That encourages me much more than a remote possibility that I might win a $20 gift certificate in a monthly drawing. I know TJ's has some bean counters somewhere who think TJ's prices are the only thing that matters but if that was true, you wouldn't have samples.
Second, cashiers need better training regarding bagging cloth bags. Recently I brought a bunch of my own bags, more than needed to pack all my groceries. I did so to be able to separate items. The cashier though was determined to pack the wine bottles in individual paper sacks (like that will keep a wine bottle from breaking but my applesauce jar is ok without extra bagging) and frozen items in plastic bags. From my view, a customer who brings their own bags can be identified as a customer who is trying to avoid bringing plastic and paper bags home. From my varied experiences with cashiers when bringing my own bags, it appears to me that TJ's does not have consistent training on the subject.
Let me know if you would like specific ideas that would improve the bagging process.

what is good for the country is good for General Motors and vice versa

It is now the law of Miami, soon to be nationwide, that a major league baseball (MLB) team is in the interests of the public good. Thus public financing that is limited by law to financing for projects that serve "the public good" is available to a private entity - the local MLB team.

In a court decision from the Miami-Dade Circuit Court, it was upheld that public financing of a baseball stadium for the Florida Marlins baseball team served the public good and is thus allowed (and available). This is the Miami Herald article on September 10, 2008 -
http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/baseball/florida-marlins/story/679722.html

Earlier this week the federal government took over mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and appears to be preparing to bail out the latest failing investment bank, Lehman Brothers. On Monday morning after the takeover announcement, the financial news cable channel CNBC, had numerous talking heads explaining how there was really nothing else the government could do due to the large scope of shareholders - "it would touch everyone". Occasionally a voice was raised that "isn't this socialism?" but fewer were willing to call it what it really is - corporate welfare. Tip of the hat to Jim Rogers, a man with money in the market who said on CNBC: "America is more communist than China is right now. You can see that this is welfare of the rich, it is socialism for the rich… it's just bailing out financial institutions," Rogers said. http://www.cnbc.com/id/26603489

So despite the decline of General Motors, things remain the same, although the names have been changed. If it is good for the country it is good for the corporation, public or private, and if it is good for the corporation, of course it is good for the nation. When the Marlins start play in their new publicly financed stadium, I hope the public good includes food and beer concession prices that are more reasonable than at my current favorite publicly financed (and given away to the team owners) MLB stadium, Nationals Park in Washington, DC (awaiting the selling of the name to yet another corporate entity).




from Wikipedia -
In 1953, Charles Erwin Wilson, then GM president, was named by Eisenhower as Secretary of Defense. When he was asked during the hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee if as secretary of defense he could make a decision adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively but added that he could not conceive of such a situation "because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa". Later this statement was often misquoted, suggesting that Wilson had said simply, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." At the time, GM was one of the largest employers in the world – only Soviet state industries employed more people. In 1955, General Motors became the first American corporation to pay taxes of over $1,000 million.[1]