News
Abby represented the Our Soil team at the Black August People’s Clinic held at Freedom Square in Troy today. She had an opportunity to speak about the project and distribute a Lead Safe Capital Region Handout (that we modified from the original created by Howard W.
Dan will depart for Mónica’s laboratory at the University of Arizona at the beginning of September, delayed by COVID-19 from the original schedule of July 2020. COVID-19 also thwarted the desire of the project team to conduct a preliminary participatory mapping workshop to identify several locations in and around Troy to take soil samples for use in the Ramírez-Andreotta laboratory in continuing to develop the Community Soil Study Toolkit created by Nuestros Suelos in Chile.
Abby and Dan published an article comparing and contrasting COVID-19 and lead exposure in the online magazine Toxic News. By considering the dimensions of testing, racialized vulnerability, workplace exposures, and individualized protection, the manifestation of the two seemingly disparate health challenges may not be so dissimilar after all:
Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute closed its campus for the foreseeable future in response to COVID-19. The RPI-based project team will begin working remotely and are fortunate that we will be able to continue video interviews with community-engaged soil researchers.
Abby and Dan have started conducting video interviews with community-engaged soil researchers and practitioners throughout the U.S. who are focused on studying and addressing heavy metals like lead and arsenic in urban soils. The researchers and practitioners that we plan to interview work at the boundary of academic science, environmental regulation, and affected communities.
Dan was interviewed by Melissa Bromley of The Sanctuary for Independent Media on WOOC 105.3 about the Our Soil project. They discussed the prevalence of lead in urban soils from past use of lead-based paints and leaded gasolines that have left lead residues in soils and homes, particularly concentrated in urban areas. They also talked about continuing the development of the Community Soil Study Toolkit for making field measurements of lead, arsenic, and copper in soil.
RPI undergraduate students Tal Margalit, Izania Gonzalez, and Carson Reay have joined the Our Soil team for the semester to assist with researching environmental policy on lead in soil, designing a participatory mapping workshop to locate sites for soil testing, and identifying best practices for gardening when soil contains lead. Welcome!
A belated congratulations to Nuestros Suelos for winning a 2019 Making and Doing Award at the annual conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) held in New Orleans, LA, in September 2019!
