Multimedia exposures to arsenic and lead for children near an inactive mine tailings and smelter site

Abstract

Children living near contaminated mining waste areas may have high exposures to metals from the environment. This study investigates whether exposure to arsenic and lead is higher in children in a community near a legacy mine and smelter site in Arizona compared to children in other parts of the United States and the relationship of that exposure to the site. Arsenic and lead were measured in residential soil, house dust, tap water, urine, and toenail samples from 70 children in 34 households up to 7 miles from the site. Soil and house dust were sieved, digested, and analyzed via ICP-MS. Tap water and urine were analyzed without digestion, while toenails were washed, digested and analyzed. Blood lead was analyzed by an independent, certified laboratory. Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated between each environmental media and urine and toenails for arsenic and lead. Geometric mean arsenic (standard deviation) concentrations for each matrix were: 22.1 (2.59) ppm and 12.4 (2.27) ppm for soil and house dust (<63 μm), 5.71 (6.55) ppb for tap water, 14.0 (2.01) μg/L for specific gravity-corrected total urinary arsenic, 0.543 (3.22) ppm for toenails. Soil and vacuumed dust lead concentrations were 16.9 (2.03) ppm and 21.6 (1.90) ppm. The majority of blood lead levels were below the limit of quantification. Arsenic and lead concentrations in soil and house dust decreased with distance from the site. Concentrations in soil, house dust, tap water, along with floor dust loading were significantly associated with toenail and urinary arsenic but not lead. Mixed models showed that soil and tap water best predicted urinary arsenic. In our study, despite being present in mine tailings at similar levels, internal lead exposure was not high, but arsenic exposure was of concern, particularly from soil and tap water. Naturally occurring sources may be an additional important contributor to exposures in certain legacy mining areas.

Association of Children’s Urinary CC16 Levels with Arsenic Concentrations in Multiple Environmental Media

“…The Metals Exposure Study in Homes (MESH) took place between 6 June 2012 and 27 June 2013 in the Town of Dewey-Humboldt, Arizona. A detailed description of this study has been provided elsewhere [ 26 ]. All houses ( n = 34) were within seven miles of the Iron King Mine and Humboldt Smelter Site, a Superfund site listed on the US EPA National Priorities List.…”

“…By using our dietary logs, we have determined that consumption of apple, cereal, and egg are most strongly associated with urinary levels of inorganic arsenic metabolites in our population compared to our analyses with other foods [ 27 ]. As previously explained, recruitment, questionnaire administration, and sample collection were conducted by local community members that were trained by the University of Arizona research team both in the field and in the laboratory [ 26 ]. All parents gave their informed consent for their children’s inclusion before they participated in the study.…”

“…House dust samples were taken using a 2.2 horsepower Hoover CH3000 vacuum cleaner (Hoover, Glenwillow, OH, USA) equipped with a pre-weighed X-Cell 100 dust collection sock (Midwestern Filtration, West Chester Township, OH, USA) inserted in the crevice tool of the vacuum, as previously described [ 26 ]. At each house, a 1 m 2 template was laid on the floor in the room where residents spent the majority of their time and vacuumed for two min.…”

“…Since there are multiple children in many households, we used the robust cluster estimator of variance to account for potential clustering by household. We have previously demonstrated that there are correlations between the concentration of arsenic in the multiple environmental media and in the biomarkers [ 26 ]. Therefore, we calculated partial correlations to understand how these multiple variables related to each other and to our outcome of interest ( i.e.…”

Do Online Comments Affect Environmental Management? Identifying Factors Related to Environmental Management and Sustainability of Hotels

“…Furthermore, Londoño and Hernandez-Maskivker [27] applied sentiment analysis to TripAdvisor comments to identify practices related to environmental sustainability [54][55][56]. On the other hand, García et al (2012) [16] used a questionnaire to obtain information on the most important indicators that improve the management of environmental aspects by hotels [57][58][59][60].…”