Environmental and potential human health legacies of non-industrial sources of lead in a Canadian urban landscape – the case study of St John's, Newfoundland

Figures & data

Figure 1. Location map for St John's in eastern Newfoundland, Atlantic Canada. The oldest parts of the city are located in the downtown area, on the north side of St John's Harbour.

Table 1. Details of blood lead studies conducted in Canada

Year	Location	Point source of pollution	Age range	Blood lead level (μg/dL)	Above 10 μg/dL	Reference
1978	Canada Health Survey	N			25%	Statistics Canada 1982
1979	Rouyn-Noranda, QC	Y		Mean 21.4		Goulet et al. 1996
1984	Ontario Blood Lead Study	N		Mean 12.0		O'Heany et al. 1988
1984	South Riverdale, ON	Y	<6 years	GM 12		Langlois et al. 1996
1987	Alberta	N	0–16 years	Mean 5.8–6	5	FPLWG 1994
1989	Quebec City, QC	N	1–6 years	Mean 5.6	10.8%	Levallois et al. 1991
1989	Vancouver, BC	N	2–3 years	GM 5.9	5%	Jin et al. 1995
1989	Rouyn-Noranda, QC	Y		Mean 11.1		Letourneau and Gagnon 1989
1989	St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC	Y	6 months–10 years	GM 9.2		Goulet et al. 1996
1990	Murdochville, QC	Y	6 months–5 years	Mean 5.9		FPLWG 1994
1990	Murdochville, QC	Y	5–12 years	Mean 6.7		FPLWG 1994
1991	Trail, BC	Y	<6 years	13.5	83%	Hilts et al. 2001
1991	St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC	Y	6 months–10 years	GM 5.0		Goulet et al. 1996
1992	South Riverdale, ON	Y	<6 years	GM 3		Langlois et al. 1996
2000	Trail, BC	Y	<6 years	6.7	27%	Hilts et al. 2001
2001	Sydney, NS	Y	1–5 years	GM 1.9	0%	NSDH and CBDHA 2001
2001	Port Colborne, ON	Y	<7 years	GM 2.3	0%	Decou et al. 2001

Table 2. Comparisons of soil lead concentrations for Canadian cities. The data for St John's are from this study

City	Population	Metric	Lead (ppm)	Sample type
St John's, NLPilot studyThis study	95,000	MedianGM Median	203162148	Residential soil collected from open spaces, along foundations, and by roadsides
Belledune, NB^a	1711	Median	43–136	Garden soil
Sydney, NS^b	24,115	Median	340	Residential soil collected away from buildings and roads near the coke ovens
Victoria, BC^c	75,000	Median	90	Boulevards, parks, schoolyards
Trail, BC^d	7575	GM	756	Residential soil collected from two to three areas of exposed soil where children play
Port Colborne, ON^e	18,600	Median	167	Residential topsoil collected at least 1 m away from driveways, walkways, buildings, and fences
Sudbury, ON^f	157,857	Mean	30	Various locations downwind from three Ni- and Cu-smelters
Ottawa, ON^g	774,000	GM	42	Residential soil collected from five locations in yard
Iqaluit, NU^h	4220	Median	13	Commercial and residential sites sampled at grid intersections and also targeted samples from playgrounds, roads, and culverts
^aGovernment of New Brunswick 2005; ^bLambert and Lane 2004; ^cBowman and Bobrowsky 2003; ^dHilts 2003; ^eMOE 2002; ^fAdamo et al. 2002; ^gRasmussen et al. 2001; ^hPeramaki and Decker 2000

Figure 2. (a) View looking west across downtown St John's c. 1920s. The harbour is visible on the far left. The downtown was (and remains) predominantly residential, comprised of clapboarded, wooden-framed row houses with small rear gardens. The paint regularly applied to clapboard contained lead. Coal was a common heating fuel for much of the 1800s through to the 1950s and contained high lead and arsenic levels. (b) View looking west across downtown St John's soon after the fire of 1892. Photographer's position is slightly to the left (south) of the one in Figure 2(a). Only stone and brick structures survived the fire. Note the two towers of The Basilica Cathedral of St John the Baptist in the right background. They are also visible on the far right in Figure 2(a). Source: The Geography Collection, Archives and Manuscripts Division, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's.

Table 3. Summary statistics on lead concentrations (ppm) in soil samples from surface and sub-surface levels in rural and suburban (non-urban) settings around St John's. Sub-surface samples are further divided by the geological group underlying the sample location

	Non-urban samples		Sub-surface samples overlying geological groups
	Surface	Sub-surface	St John's (urban)	St John's (non-urban)	Conception	Signal Hill
n	18	29	5	5	17	7
Median	36	17	37	22	16	21
GM	37	17	37	23	15	22
Range	9–171	8–45	18–73	16–30	15–32	12–45

Table 4. Descriptive statistics for soil lead concentrations by sample category for St John's

Sample category	n	Mean	SE	GM	Min.	Percentile			Max.
						25th	50th	75th
Ambient	514	411	40	154	9	50	138	424	12,738
Dripline	328	766	112	219	15	57	194	831	24,477
Road	389	222	12	136	16	57	136	306	1765
All	1231	446	35	162	9	55	148	415	24,477
All values in ppm. SE is standard error.

Figure 3. The percentage distribution of soil samples by sample type in each of four soil lead concentration categories defined by Canadian and US recommended guidelines: CCME residential guideline (140 ppm), US EPA guideline for bare soil in play areas (400 ppm), and US EPA bare soil outside play areas (1200 ppm).

Figure 4. Spatial distribution of soil lead concentrations by sample location for (a) all samples and (b) dripline samples only. Mapped categories are defined by Canadian and US recommended soil lead concentrations. The high density of soil samples in the downtown area causes overlapping of category symbols and obscuring of samples with higher lead concentrations in (a). These high-soil-lead locations are predominantly associated with dripline samples and are more clearly visible in (b).

Figure 5. The distribution of GM soil lead concentrations by sample type for each of six property age categories for St John's.

Figure 6. The percentage distribution of soil samples by sample type in each of four soil lead c-oncentration categories defined by Canadian and US recommended guidelines grouped by property age.

Table 5. Descriptive statistics for indoor lead loadings by dust sample location. All values in μg/ft² for comparison with US EPA guidelines for indoor dust levels

Sample Type	n	GM	Min.	Percentile			Max.
				25th	50th	75th
Entrance	32	6.7	0.1	2.9	4.7	13.5	3169.4
Kitchen	32	3.3	0.2	0.9	2.7	9.4	79.5
Window	32	24.3	0.3	6.7	15.5	82.5	2938.2
All	96	8.1	0.1	2.3	7.0	23.1	3169.4

Figure 7. The distribution of GM dust lead loadings by sample location for each of six property age categories for St John's.

Figure 8. Log-log plot of GM soil lead concentration and dust lead loading by sample location on sampled properties in St John's.

Table 6. Comparisons of soil lead concentrations (ppm) in three different locations on properties in New Orleans and St John's

City location	Sample location	New Orleans median	St John's median
Inner city	All samples		981
(pre-1926)	Ambient	212	1077
	Dripline	840	1253
	Road	342	376
Mid city	All samples		224
(1926–1960)	Ambient	40	201
	Dripline	110	412
	Road	110	168
Suburban	All samples		58
(post-1960)	Ambient	28	49
	Dripline	50	62
	Road	86	64

Figure 9. Lead isotope composition of contaminated urban soils, undisturbed background samples (C-horizon tills), and potential contaminants (coal, paint chips, ore, and atmospheric aerosol). Soil samples from open spaces and yards are equivalent to ambient samples.

Table 7. Predicted blood lead concentrations for children between 6 and 36 months in St John's based on data from Lanphear et al. (1998)

Property age	Measured GM soil lead concentration (ppm)	Measured GM floor dust lead loading (μg/ft^2)	Predicted GM blood lead (μg/dL)	Predictedprobability >10 μg/dL (%)
>1926	901	15.5	6.5	21.3
1926–1948	334	6.1	4.6	7.7
1949–1960	191	1.0	3.0	1.6
1961–1976	95	2.1	3.2	2.2
1977–1992	49	0.2	<2.6	<0.8
1993–Present	38	1.9	2.8	1.3

Table 8. Summary data for blood lead measurements in children across Newfoundland (unpublished chart review by O'Brien, personal communication 2006) and in the St John's region (unpublished pilot surveillance projects, Office of the Medical Officer of Health, Eastern Health, St John's)

	Newfoundland	St John's region
Dates	1993–2004	August 2004–April 2005	September 2005–December 2006
Sample size	Under 6 years – 77	0.5–6 years– 69	0.5–6 years – 24
GM blood lead conc. (μg/dL)	0–12 years 3.13	0.5–6 years 2.04	0.5–6 years 2.2
% above 10 μg/dL threshold	0–18 years 4.2	0.5–6 years 4.4	0.5–6 years 0

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