Dan used a portable x-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzer to measure lead, arsenic, and copper in the soil samples from public spaces in and around Troy, NY, as well as soil samples archived in the Ramírez-Andreotta laboratory. The results will be compared to another laboratory technique, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), as well as the field tests for lead, arsenic, and copper in the Community Soil Study Toolkit. The XRF analyzer is portable and can be brought into the field, but it is a costly piece of equipment. It is able to measure the concentrations of elements like lead, arsenic, and copper in soil through the property of fluorescence.

Fluorescence occurs when an object or material absorbs light and then subsequently re-emits light. A vibrant example is when an object absorbs ultraviolet light (which our eyes cannot see) and re-emits visible light, such as in the image below of various fluorescent minerals taken by Hannes Grobe and shared under a Creative Commons license:

Similarly, materials can exhibit x-ray fluorescence by absorbing and re-emitting x-rays, although we cannot see this with our eyes. The XRF analyzer produces x-rays that are absorbed by a material and then measures the re-emitted x-rays. The individual atoms in a material are what absorb and re-emit the x-rays, and different chemical elements re-emit x-rays with different energy signatures. So by measuring the energies of the re-emitted x-rays, the concentrations of elements like lead, arsenic, and copper in a material can be determined. In the image below, the XRF analyzer is measuring the elemental concentrations of a soil sample through a plastic bag.

Mónica’s interview with Dan aired on Tucson community radio station KXCI 91.3 as part of its Thesis Thursday program. Mónica and Dan discuss the Our Soil project that brought him to the Ramírez-Andreotta laboratory, what he will be doing there to support the project, and music for long road trips. You can listen to the interview on KXCI’s website here.

The delay on our laboratory work with the Community Soil Study Toolkit due to COVID-19 has come to an end:

On September 3, Dan left his remote workplace in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by car for the Ramírez-Andreotta laboratory at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. He arrived on September 5 with thirty-three soil samples he collected from public spaces in and around Troy, New York, two weeks earlier. After a two-week quarantine period and laboratory safety and COVID-19 protocol training, he entered the Ramírez-Andreotta laboratory to start processing the preliminary Troy soils for use with the three colorimetric field tests for lead, arsenic and copper to include in the Community Soil Study Toolkit. The Ramírez-Andreotta laboratory has a large archive of soils that will also be used in preparing the three colorimetric tests. We are working one person (sometimes two people) at a time in the Ramírez-Andreotta laboratory, wearing cloth masks, and maintaining physical distance from one another.

Out the car window in Oklahoma:

Soils air drying in the laboratory:

Abby, Kathy, Dan, and Branda Miller (RPI Professor of Arts and Sanctuary for Independent Media Arts & Education Coordinator) gave a presentation titled “Lead Poisoning and Environmental Justice” as part of the Frontiers in Biotechnology Seminar Series hosted by RPI’s Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies today. We discussed soil lead from four perspectives: (1) how gaps in science and policy make exposure to soil lead an invisible health threat, (2) how the Sanctuary for Independent Media in North Troy is working to bring attention to environmental injustice in our community, (3) how community-based soil testing can help people avoid lead exposures, and (4) the importance of collaboration between artists, social scientists, engineers, and natural scientists when tackling environmental health challenges.

A recording of the seminar can be found here.

RPI undergraduate student Tal Margalit returns to the Our Soil project team this semester to assist us in documenting our project as well as facilitating our auto-ethnography, or “self-study” process. Welcome back!

Abby was interviewed by Peter Sergay of The Sanctuary for Independent Media on WOOC 105.3 about the Our Soil project. They discussed the potential of the Community Soil Study Toolkit to allow people to measure the concentration of heavy metals like lead, arsenic, and copper right in their backyards and neighborhoods without the need for additional laboratory equipment. One of the goals of the project is to use the Toolkit with neighbors in North Troy through a series of workshops in order to identify locations and concentrations of these heavy metals. Abby also discussed another goal of acting on this knowledge to address the issue of soil contamination, both practically by acting directly through simple landscaping practices in our small group as well as politically by considering soil lead as a broad public issue, one that affects virtually all urban areas throughout the U.S. and in many places across the world, that necessitates collective action. You can listen to the radio interview here.