Smelting Remains a Public Health Risk Nearly a Century Later: A Case Study in Pueblo, Colorado, USA

Moussa M. Diawara, Sofy Shrestha, Jim Carsella and Shanna Farmer
Additional contact information
Moussa M. Diawara: Department of Biology, Colorado State University-Pueblo, Pueblo, CO 81001, USA
Sofy Shrestha: Department of Biology, Colorado State University-Pueblo, Pueblo, CO 81001, USA
Jim Carsella: Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University-Pueblo, Pueblo, CO 81001, USA
Shanna Farmer: Regional Access to Graduate Education, Colorado State University-Pueblo, Pueblo, CO 81001, USA

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: Pueblo, Colorado has a long history of smelting activities, and recent studies raised concerns about lead exposure. This study tested 240 children in Pueblo for blood lead levels (BLLs) and found a significant association between distance from old smelters and children BLLs. Around 7.5% of Pueblo children had BLLs above the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reference level of 5 µg/dL for elevated BLL, and 18.3% had BLLs between 3.3–4.9 µg/dL. Out of the 36 children who lived near former smelters, 13.9% had BLLs above 5 µg/dL vs. 6.37% for children living away from old smelters. The proportion of Pueblo children with elevated BLL was nearly three times the 2007–2010 United States national average (7.5% vs. 2.6%), and this was higher in the immediate vicinity of old smelters (13.9% vs. 2.6%). Genetic polymorphisms for ALAD-1 or ALAD-2 alleles, which play a role in susceptibility to lead toxicity, were not associated with children BBLs. Around 38.5% of houses sampled near the smelters had topsoil lead levels higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s benchmark of 400 mg/kg. Our study resulted in the addition of areas of Pueblo to the EPA Superfund National Priorities List in December 2014, and cleanup is currently underway to minimize the public health risks.

Keywords: smelting; topsoil contamination; children blood lead level; ALAD polymorphism; public health risk; U.S. EPA Superfund National Priority List (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/5/932/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/5/932/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:5:p:932-:d:144958

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().