Lead Contaminated Soil

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Permalink Reply by Diana on March 25, 2009 at 9:28am

Ugh, no! But I did some field work on an EPA cleanup site in an old city neighborhood where there were various levels of lead contamination from a nearby metalworks. Research exactly how high your soil levels are...some people just capped it with a foot or two of clean soil. One of the complications to removal and replacement was that the replacement soil was also contaminated and it had to be done over! PS - I am SOOO glad I don't work there anymore. Has your soil been "officially" tested?

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Permalink Reply by Amanda on March 25, 2009 at 12:00pm

I sent a soil sample to a University of Mass. Cooperative extension lab or somewhere, and they tested it for lead as well as the regular nutrients. It's been a while, but I think the result was in the 800 ppm range.

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Permalink Reply by Adrian Fox on March 26, 2009 at 9:38am

You don't say how large your front yard is, but if it's not too big, I would construct a veggie garden in deep raised beds built over a horticultural membrane (that lets water and air pass through). If these are two or three feet deep (means bringing in a lot of topsoil and compost, nothing should root down through the membrane into the contaminated soil. To be even safer, hire a machine to take out a foot or so of the old soil first.
But lead contamination is very serious, especially if children could be eating the produce.
But why is your EPA allowing residential development on contaminated sites? That's outrageous and horrendous and somebody should be sacked or voted out of office.

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Permalink Reply by Amanda on March 26, 2009 at 9:23pm

The house is 90 years old. Like very many urban yards the soil is probably contaminated because of old lead paint that came off the house and from leaded gasoline fueled vehicles driving by for many years.

I'm really surprised that no one has experience with this. This is the second house I have lived in where the soil lead levels are high. Have any of you had your soil tested for lead? Anyone gardening in a city really should.

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Permalink Reply by Adrian Fox on March 27, 2009 at 2:51am

Just wondered if you'd seen this website which seems to have good advice:

http://www.garden.org/urbangardening/index.php?page=sept-lead

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Permalink Reply by Shawna on March 27, 2009 at 1:00pm

I am shortly moving onto government property that was deemed a superfund clean-up site, with a HIGH watertable, (which helped spread the contamination around) so I won't grow anything in the ground there, I don't care how much they insist they cleaned it up....I will only be growing edibles in containers this year....

Can you build raised beds with a barrier in between that possibly won't allow the bed to touch the ground? Such as putting the bed on sideways cinder blocks with a fiber barrier so the water could drain, but the dirt would stay put?...Just thinking out loud here..... Or I have seen some very large self-watering containers by gardeners supply, expensive but a few of those could be worth it instead of taking chances with that soil....

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