Heavy Metals and Urban Gardens

We participated in this study, and I'm really happy for Jennifer and am impressed by the work she did in getting these data collected.  I'm also happy to say that, as a result of her study, I feel much more comfortable growing food in and eating food from my own back yard.

From her healthy gardeners website, her preliminary results show:

Potrero Hill (94107) and Noe Valley/Castro (94114) have either the highest or second highest average concentration for 5 of the metals of most concern. In addition, the Mission (94110) has the third highest concentration for each of these metals, with Visitation Valley/Portola (94134) & Bayview/Hunters Point (94124) having the lowest averages for these metals.

Raised bed gardens tend to have less metals than in-ground gardens.

Gardens in three of the five zip codes studied are more likely to have unsafe levels of lead than the other two zip codes;

There does not seem to be a significant difference in the amount of lead found in San Francisco gardens based the average household income of the surrounding area.

High levels of lead are more often found in predominately White neighborhoods, and to a much lesser extent Hispanic neighborhoods that border White neighborhoods, than neighborhoods dominated by Asian/Pacific Islanders or African Americans.

The zip codes with the oldest homes have higher amounts of lead in backyard garden soils than gardens in zip codes with much newer homes.

Read more at Healthy Gardeners