Industrially contaminated land

Davidson CM, Duncan AL, Littlejohn D, Garden LM. A critical evaluation of the three-stage BCR sequential extraction procedure to assess the potential mobility and toxicity of heavy metals in industrially-contaminated land. Anal. Chim. Acta 1998 363 45-55. 

The assessment of plant-available soil contents can frequently be achieved and validated by field experiments for nutritionally essential elements, and, for a few potentially toxic elements such as chromium, nickel and molybdenum, at the moderately elevated concentrations that can occur in agricultural situations. The validation of extraction methods, devised for agricultural and nutritional purposes, is much less easy to achieve when they are applied to heavy metals and other potentially toxic elements, especially at the higher concentrations obtained in industrially contaminated land. This is not surprising in view of the fact that for some heavy metals, for example lead, there is an effective root barrier, in many food crop plants, to their uptake and much of the metal enters plants not from the root but by deposition from the atmosphere on to leaves. In these circumstances little direct correlation would be expected between soil extractable contents and plant contents. For heavy metals and other potentially toxic elements, therefore, extraction methods are mainly of value for the assessment of the mobile and potentially mobile species rather than plant-available species. This assessment of mobile species contents may well, however, indicate the risk of plant availability in changing environmental conditions or changes in land use. 

Industrially contaminated soil. The investigation, remediation (where necessary) and re-use of derelict and industrially contaminated land is a major concern, particularly in developed countries where legislation exists or is being enacted to promote re-use of brownfield sites and discourage greenfield development. 

For industrially contaminated land, however, the contents extracted by the extractants in wide use are, in general, poorly correlated with plant uptake, growth or health but are predictors only of element mobility or potential mobility and hence can, at least potentially, be related to plant uptake in some environmental... 

L. (2000). Column leaching and sorption experiments to assess the mobility of potentially toxic elements in industrially contaminated land. J. Environ. Monit. 2, 234-239. 

NICOLE - www.nicole.org.uk - focusing on industrially contaminated land and began in 1995. 

Wilson S. A., Card G. B. and Flaines S. (2004) Gas protection - a common sense approach. Society of Chemical Industry. Contaminated Land Achievements and Aspirations. 12-15 September 2004, Loughborough, UK. 

Galiulin, R.F, Bashkin, V.N, Galiulina, R.R and Birch, P. (2001). A Critical Review Protection from Pollution by Heavy Metals — Phytoremediation of Industrial Wastewater. Land Contamination Reclamation, 9(4), 349-357... 

Contaminated Land Syndrome Local contamination of environmental assets at industrial locations Loss of biodiversity, deposition of pollutants in soils, water and air, loss of soil functions, health hazards... 

Industrial contamination of water occurs as the result of directly introducing contaminated wastewater into a body of water or lake or from improper disposal of chemicals to the land. The chemicals most frequently found in water from both of these activities are chemicals that are used in very high volume or are very mobile. The nature of surface waters contamination is more likely to depend on the... 

Caimey, T. (1992). Theory and practice of clean cover reclamation. In Contaminated Land Treatment Technologies, ed. Rees, J. F., Society of the Chemical Industry, Elsevier Applied Science, London., 97-112. 

Contaminated land can be the result of direct or diffuse pollution. This may strongly affect the way contaminants are present on the site and in the soil samples to be analysed. Direct pollution, as present in a lot of industrial sites, may result in the presence of the neat contamination (e.g. tar-like particles or liquids). In diffuse polluted areas, the contaminants are more evenly distributed and are... 

DoE (1994c) Contaminated Land Research Report 3, Documentary Research on Industrial Sites , DoE (London). 

The DOE Industry Profiles provide developers, local authorities and anyone else interested in contaminated land, with information on the processes, materials and wastes associated with individual industries. They also provide information on the contamination that might be associated with specific industries, factors that affect the likely presence of contamination, the effect of mobility of contaminants and guidance on potential contaminants. They are not definitive studies but they introduce some of the technical considerations that need to be borne in mind at the start of an investigation for possible contamination. 

Construction Industry, Research and Information Association, Remedial Treatmentfor Contaminated Land, Special Publication SP101-112, CIRIA, London, 1998. 

Estimates of the extent of contaminated land in the United Kingdom are often based on different definitions and therefore need to be viewed cautiously. They are often based on available but incomplete sources and they may mix between definitions. Further, some industry sectors have better information on the impact of their activities than others, and this might be misconstrued to imply that these sectors have caused more contamination. It is hoped that the provisions of the new contaminated land regime in the UK will refine and improve our estimates. 

Concerns over the potential risks to human health from exposure to contaminated soils have fired a broader debate over the wider social impacts of contaminated land on the quality of life. Many former industrialised areas form a focus for low cost or social housing, driven partly by positive issues such as access to work opportunities and partly by negative issues such as low land values. Some of the more deprived communities have resided in these contaminated areas. In addition to this social issue of environmental justice, a wider recognition of the importance of a sense of place and community attachment, and a broader interpretation of environment beyond the strictly technical one, are bringing issues like the value of urban ecology, the importance of industrial heritage and the need for wider stakeholder involvement to the fore. 

Jinzu Valley, Japan. One of the most infamous cases of contaminated land and health occurred in Japan and the effects were most prominent immediately after the Second World War. Around the end of the 19th century, soils in the Jinzu River basin, part of the Toyama prefecture, became contaminated with cadmium as a result of activities upstream at the Kamioka mines. The main activity at this mine was the mining and processing of zinc (cadmium is often associated with zinc ores) with the result that wastewater rich in heavy metals was discharged into the Jinzu River. Contaminants from this industry moved down-stream and caused contamination of soils in paddy fields as a result of abstraction of river water into fields in order to cultivate the local rice crop. Under favourable conditions, cadmium can be a fairly mobile heavy metal, particularly in soils with low pH, and increases in soil cadmium can often result in an increase in the uptake of cadmium by plants. This in turn results in an increase in dietary exposure and the consumption of contaminated agricultural crops can be a major pathway of human exposure. 

Although potential liabilities for damages caused by contaminated land and past industrial activities have been addressed by the House of Lords in this one case, the costs of cleaning contaminated land and the acceptability of that land once cleansed to potential land purchasers is still a very real issue. 

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