Professor Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas
This session is for anyone who wants to learn more about soil lead contamination, how it may affect human health and how to minimize soil lead exposure in a home and neighborhood environment. The session will discuss the two funded projects focus on reducing bioavailability of lead in urban residential neighborhood soils in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas. Background information on the prevalence of soil lead contamination in urban areas, common pathways of soil lead exposure to children, the need to develop strategies that reduce soil lead exposure, the term bioavailability and the current knowledge of the efficacy of in situ soil amendments for the reduction of soil Pb bioavailability will be discussed. The primary activities of the urban soil lead project will be presented next. The project focuses on 1) Identifying and applying improved, cost-effective soil amendments to manage commonly elevated urban soil lead to selected residential yards and vacant lots; 2) Monitoring treatment efficiencies for more than 2-years; 3) Building community capacity to target these protocols where they are most needed; and 4) Comparing bioaccessibility test protocols with two commonly used soil test methods This work is made possible through a partnership between various collaborators.
Learning Objectives:
By attending this session, attendees will:
Understand the problem of elevated lead in urban soils and its connection with persistent child lead poisoning and become familiar with the concepts of bioavailability of soil lead in humans and other organisms
Learn how in situ reductions in bioavailability of lead and its environmental health risk to humans may be achieved through various soil treatments
Learn how existing lead poisoning intervention protocols and land remediation methods for soil lead could be improved by soil treatments to reduce bioavailability identified by this study in terms of lower remediation costs, comparable health protection, and greater long-term effectiveness compared to current methods.
