NYC's Green Spaces Get The Lead Out

December 5, 2014- Lead contamination continues to be a major public health concern.

According to the American Industrial Hygiene Association, poisoning from exposure to lead can cause several hidden, non-specific and irreversible neurological, neurobehavioral, developmental, hematologic, renal, cardiovascular, immunological, and skeletal health problems.

Once introduced into the body, lead can remain for 30 years, causing permanent learning disabilities, behavioral issues, hearing problems, heart disease, kidney disease, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s and death.

Experts say that children, pregnant women and sick people are most vulnerable to lead poisoning.

Therefore, it is especially troubling to learn that a New York state study has found that herbs and vegetables grown in New York City community gardens are loaded with lead and other toxic metals.

In a recent NYPost.com post, Gary Buiso reports on the pharmacologists' findings, as compiled by researchers at Cornell and the state Center for Environmental Health and published this summer in the journal Environmental Pollution.

Here are the highlights of "Root of all evil: Vegetables in NYC gardens are ‘toxic’":

• Pharmacologists used safety levels set by the European Union for lead and cadmium, since the United States doesn’t set a threshold for veggies.

• Tainted vegetables — some sold in city markets — were found in five of seven plots tested.

• "Most of the root vegetables sampled far exceeded safe thresholds for lead, with the most toxic being a carrot at the Hart to Hart community garden in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn," Buiso writes. "It contained 1.95 parts per million of the toxic metal — nearly 20 times the level considered safe, according to state Health Department data."

• "If they don’t know what the level of lead is in the garden, it would be advisable not to grow root crops," study co-author Murray McBride, a Cornell University professor of soil chemistry tells Buiso.

• Dried basil from the Classon-Fulgate garden in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, had 11 parts per million of lead. Dried thyme at Hart to Hart was found with 18 parts per million of lead.

• "There is no known safe level of lead exposure." says Howard Mielke, a Tulane Medical School pharmacologist who reviewed the data for The New York Post, and quoted in the article.

• Earlier soil studies by the same researchers found lead levels above federal soil guidelines at 24 of 54 city gardens, or 44 percent of the total, and overall toxic soil at 38 gardens — 70 percent of the total.

• "Safety is a top priority in all our green spaces, and we have been working closely with community gardens to ensure all food grown is safe to eat," says Parks spokeswoman Tara Kiernan, also quoted in the post.

• Kiernan also tells the New York Post that the gardens involved with the study have all received clean soil and compost, adding, "Safety is a top priority in all our green spaces, and we have been working closely with community gardens to ensure all food grown is safe to eat."

Read Gary Buiso's full NYPost.com post here.

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