Danger Dust

Key Points

The US Environmental Protection Agency recently reduced its soil lead screening recommendations

We find that nearly one in four households may now contain a soil lead hazard based on the new recommendations

This finding challenges the current expensive approach, sometimes termed "dig and dump," to mitigation at this scale

The US Environmental Protection Agency recently lowered the recommended screening levels for soil lead, dropping it by one half to 200 parts per million. Based on a wide network of citizen-science collected household soil samples, we find that nearly one in four households may now contain a soil lead hazard based on this new, more protective standard. This finding challenges the current expensive approach, sometimes termed “dig and dump” to mitigation.

Conclusions

Given the scale of the urban soil lead contamination issues and the disproportionate exposure potential faced by environmental justice communities, this issue finally needs to be fully grappled with. The USEPA has taken a critical first step by developing and implementing new soil lead screening standards—it is now up to the network of people concerned about soil lead exposure to consider reasonable, feasible, and equitable ways to reduce exposure and to regain the vitality, health, and fertility of this critical resource of the commons.