
The Hidden Dangers of Lead in Urban Gardens - palidanx
http://modernfarmer.com/2014/07/lead-urban-gardens/
======
normloman
Urban gardening is a great example of faux-environmentalism. It feels good,
but it's not an efficient or safe way to farm. Lead contamination is one
reason. Another is pure logistics. While advocates claim local food reduces
"food miles" and saves resources, the amount of miles food travels to get to
your plate is just a fraction of it's carbon footprint. It's much more
efficient to grow food where it grows best and ship it across the world
compared to growing it locally and using excess resources to grow plants in
poor conditions.

If you have time, read this:

[http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/15000/15100/15145/DE97763079.pdf](http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/15000/15100/15145/DE97763079.pdf)

Otherwise, get the short version:

[http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-
miles](http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-miles)

That said, gardening is a great hobby that shouldn't be limited to rural
communities. But we need to do this safely - perhaps raised beds and a green
house. And we shouldn't expect urban farming to magically solve our food
needs. Even if everyone had a garden in their back yard, it wouldn't
substitute the amount we grow in large farms.

~~~
bluthru
The associated benefits cannot be overstated: education, beauty, community, a
connection to nature, health, and most assuredly tasting better. Urban
community gardens are a very worthwhile pursuit. People should be encouraged
to garden with their lawns instead of using so much wasteful, non-native
grass.

Long term I hope to see LED-powered warehouses for urban produce production:
[http://www.ledinside.com/news/2014/7/japanese_farmer_partner...](http://www.ledinside.com/news/2014/7/japanese_farmer_partners_with_ge_to_develop_world_largest_led_indoor_farm)

Fresh, local, efficient, and no need for pesticides.

~~~
sirseal
Local urban farming is not assured to produce healthier nor tastier food. That
squarely lies in the hands of the farmer. Farming is a skill; most people are
not good at it.

LED powered farmhouses would be nice. But going back to the person that you
commented on, now we're making energy to give to plants, instead of using the
sun directly to make plants. This has the potential (especially in today's
economy) to increase the carbon footprint of urban growing.

Certainly local. Fresh most likely. Efficient? Not so simple, probably not as
efficient. And unless you're using GMOs that are resistant to invasive insect
species, you'll still need pesticides (or lots of human hours....which
severely decreases efficiency and increases cost).

~~~
bluthru
>Local urban farming is not assured to produce healthier nor tastier food.
That squarely lies in the hands of the farmer. Farming is a skill; most people
are not good at it.

One word: tomato. Supermarket tomatoes are grown to survive shipping. Tomatoes
that you grow yourself are always more delicious.

I'm not sure why I was downvoted without an explanation. What I've stated is
100% factual:
[http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2118455,0...](http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2118455,00.html)

~~~
evilduck
Because you can't generalize from a single datapoint. Tomatoes are pretty much
the extreme example of this where it favors home grown plants. There's a large
swath of plants where they aren't likely to be clearly better, and some where
they're likely to be worse than the ones grown at scale (i.e. try growing an
Apple tree from seed).

~~~
pdabbadabba
Yes but, generally speaking, urban farmers know which crops are worth growing
and which ones aren't. This is why you won't find many of them attempting to
grow apple trees, and a whole lot of them growing tomato and basil. Except for
the occassional case of an idiot urban farmer (or, more kindly, an overly
ambitious), it makes no sense to criticize urban farming on the ground that
not all potential crops can be grown better in one's back yard. (Except the
relatively extreme view that all agriculture can be replaced with people
growing crops in their back yard -- a view that I've never heard a person
espouse.)

------
logfromblammo
Some plants, such as ragweed, mustard, oilseed rape, sunflower, cabbage, and
duckweed (for semi-aquatic gardens) are metal hyperaccumulators.

If you have contaminated soil, you can grow these plants in the contaminated
soil, then remove the plants and dispose of them safely. This will take
several growing seasons to bring toxic metals levels down to acceptable
parameters, but it has the advantage of being extremely inexpensive. Urban
soils polluted by leaded paints and vehicle exhaust will likely be usable
after one or two seasons of phytoremediation, but extremely polluted waste
sites could take decades, starting with a narrower range of hyperaccumulator
plants that can survive the initial high levels of contamination.

Adding mustard to your regular crop rotation is also useful for pest and weed
control.

------
jwess
Over the last 25 years lead has been phased out of paint, automobile gas and
plumbing fixtures, but aviation gasoline, or "Avgas" remains leaded and is the
number one source of airborne lead in the United States [0].

It frustrates me that the primary source of airborne lead stems from a mostly
recreational source. Most planes that use Avgas are privately owned piston-
engine/prop planes.

[0] [http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/121-a54/](http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/121-a54/)

~~~
steven777400
As a recreational pilot, this bugs me too. Every time I fuel the aircraft, or
check fuel samples, or stick the tanks, I'm interacting with lead. I'm sure
that the amount is small enough that I'll never notice any difference, but,
I'd really rather not have the lead. I'm hoping for a lead-free Avgas sooner
rather than later.

~~~
amenghra
Keep in mind that for lead there is no minimum safe exposure limit.

------
aaronbee
This article from 2013 makes the argument that lead in the environment is
responsible for violent crime.
[http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-
li...](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-
gasoline)

~~~
shas3
The problem with the lead-crime hypothesis is that the cause of lead and the
effect of increased crime are 'too far apart' with many intervening links in
the causal chain, to paraphrase Steven Pinker [1]. He calls the hypothesis
'provocative, but far from proven.' The intervening links in the causal chain
involve a lot of sub-causal links and hypotheses that are as yet, unproven.

[1]
[http://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/pinker_comments_o...](http://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/pinker_comments_on_lead_removal_and_declining_crime.pdf)

~~~
Shorel
Even if lead can't be directly related to crime, lead poisoning causes many
bad things to the human body, including learning disabilities, and reducing
adult brain size in children exposed.

------
coldpie
Interesting article. I bought a CSA share with a local urban farm in St Paul
and Minneapolis. I thought about soil and air contaminants when we made the
purchase, but eventually decided to do it anyway. This article reassures me a
bit that it's fine, especially since we always wash our veggies well.

------
peterwwillis
[http://dge.stanford.edu/SCOPE/SCOPE_31/SCOPE_31_2.05_Chapter...](http://dge.stanford.edu/SCOPE/SCOPE_31/SCOPE_31_2.05_Chapter10_119-146.pdf)

Read the summary at the bottom for the goods. Basically, different plants
absorb different amounts of cadmium, and different soils have different levels
of it, and it's all influenced by whether large human developments are
churning Cd into the soils nearby. Nothing that hasn't been covered in studies
for the past 30 or 40 years...

------
trhway
while at elementary school age we were extracting lead from the old navy
batteries and cables and smelt it in tin cans over open fire and made various
stuff out of it - i guess new generations of children will have such fun no
more :)

~~~
CapitalistCartr
In science class, we played with mercury. After school we had BB gun battles.
We stood up in the front seat of my dad's pickup truck; the one with the metal
dash. Bicycle helmets hadn't been invented yet. I weep for the future of
children now.

//Edit: OK, people, the comment about weeping for the future of children was
meant in jest! Nearly killing ourselves as kids wasn't helpful. The notion
that we did all right is survivors bias.

~~~
trhway
> After school we had BB gun battles.

reminded that nothing makes you run faster than an "enemy" with an air rifle
with crafts-clay "bullet". Leaves nice haematoma even through wool pants :)

I'm all for the progress, yet i think abolishing BB guns/air-rifle battles
isn't the one. Making sure that everybody wears safety glasses would be the
one (we didn't have the ones, and that i think was unnecessary risk) Lead of
course has to go.

Another - i see in the park children playing battles with "swords" which can't
deliver any pain - foam wrapped by duct tape. We had "swords" we carved out of
wood. They could deliver some pain, and that made the fight more lively i'd
say :)

~~~
freehunter
I fought battles with metal BBs. I fought battles with airsoft plastic BBs.
I've never had to dig an airsoft BB out of my leg, can't say the same about
metal BBs.

------
hoprocker
Gardens aren't the only potential vector; when we were raising chickens in out
backyard in Oakland, we had an egg tested and found that its lead content was
quite high. Still, visitors seemed to love that we had them, and we never
received any commentary from the hens themselves.

------
jqm
This kind of issue is why the food safety and modernization act (or some
version thereof in US) is a necessary evil.

[http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/FSMA/](http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/FSMA/)

People on the internet (including HN) often consider this act a conspiracy by
Monsanto and friends to seize control of the worlds food supply, but the
simple fact is that people are regularly endangered by food they eat and there
haven't been proper controls in place to address many easily preventable
hazards. Just like restaurants, there needs to be some regulation and
inspection of food production.

No, before you can even think it.... I'm not a paid Monsanto shill (was
accused of this multiple times last time this came up here on HN) nor am I fan
of big centralized seed/chemical companies. I am however a fan of safety and
good sense. Just because a small producer does it doesn't mean it is
necessarily better or more natural.

