The Soil Justice Fellows met in two groups again with the Our Soil team on Saturday, August 21, and Sunday, August 29, to complete the second soil workshop. Mónica had to fly back to Tucson after the 21st, and Saed returned to Troy on the 29th after a well earned vacation. In these sessions, Fellows returned to the results of their soil testing and the health implications. The Our Soil team demonstrated how to cover soil in yards and gardens where contamination was identified and best practices like leaving shoes outside and washing hands in order to be able to use those spaces safely. We discussed nutrition, benefits of gardening, and proper precautions to take when gardening. Fellows and Our Soil team members then brainstormed what public policy and resources are necessary to address the broader scale of soil lead in Troy and other cities.

The Soil Justice Fellows met in two groups with the Our Soil team on Saturday and Sunday this weekend (8/14 and 8/15) to complete the first soil workshop. Mónica flew in from Tucson and Saed drove up from New Paltz to join Abby, Kathy, and Dan in Troy. In the NATURE Lab yard, fellows used color-based tests to measure lead and arsenic in their soil samples. Fellows shared with one another why the locations where they took samples were important to them and what they expected and hoped to find with the soil toolkit. Mónica and Saed briefed everyone on what soil is, why building healthy soils is important for community health, and how we can work with our existing soils to improve soil quality and community health.

Students in Abby’s class at RPI—“Food, Farms, and Famine”—used color-based lead tests today to screen soil in the Vasudha garden. The samples were taken last Monday, August 2, from the raised garden beds, around the compost, and along the base of the dormitory wall. Dan set the samples to dry and sieved them to remove particles larger than 2 mm in preparation for today. We did not detect lead in any of the samples that were taken, which means that samples had less than 200 parts per million lead.

Photo by Bucky Stanton.

Dan has been providing sampling kits to the Fellows over the past week and helping some in collecting their samples for the soil workshops on August 14th and 15th. Once Fellows collected their samples, they returned them to Dan so that he could set them to dry before sieving them to remove stones and debris larger than 2 millimeters. The dried and sieved soils will be used in the testing at the workshops, and this preparation is important for the consistency of the testing.

Mónica was interviewed by McKenna Conners of The Sanctuary for Independent Media on WOOC 105.3 about the Our Soil project. Mónica discussed her role in the Our Soil project and how the team is working towards greater awareness and safety with soil contamination. You can listen to the radio interview here.

Abby, Kathy, Saed, Mónica, and Dan held a rehearsal in NATURE Lab to prepare for the upcoming soil workshops! We are getting closer!