Get the Lead Out: Dreams of A Mini-Orchard
As we expected, soil test results revealed high concentrations of lead (Pb) in the soil at 4819 Dauphine. As many of you know, houses built before 1978 most likely had lead paint. New Orleans is an "old" city and if you perform a soil test around your house you will probably find lead.
After consulting a soil scientist, we have been advised to proceed with further soil testing to identify where the high concentrations of lead are on 4819 Dauphine.
We Will Test:
- Perimeter of Footprint
- Front Half of the House Footprint
- Back Half of the House Footprint
- Back Area that was not Under House
The goal for our Mini-Orchard Project is to plant dwarf fruit trees on the property where there is less than 400ppm of lead in the soil. (There are several barriers that limit heavy metal transfer into fruit: the "soil to root," "root to shoot" and "shoot to fruit" barriers). On the area with high concentrations of lead, we plan to cap the soil with sod and build raised planting beds.
Every attempt on the CSED's part will be made to create healthy garden conditions for the growing of nutritious fruit!
Attached is a doc. I received from The Cornell Waste Management Institute on: Soil Contaminants and Best Practices for Healthy Gardens. If your dealing with contaminated soil, like most of us in Orleans Parish, read to find out what steps you can take to grow a healthy garden.
Stay tuned for more information on our Mini-Orchard Project. Also, stay tuned as we gain more experience on how to turn brownfields into greenfieds, and follow our research on phytoextraction, phytostabilization, and phytoremediation (the use of plants to remediate contaminated soil) .
Comments