Lead contamination in soil tracked inside homes can cause dangerous indoor lead dust levels even in residences with no interior lead-based paint, according to researchers with the Rutgers Environmental, Occupational and Health Sciences Institute in collaboration with community scientists: members of the general public who participate in data collection under the direction of scientists.
Lead contamination in soil tracked inside homes can cause dangerous indoor lead dust levels even in residences with no interior lead-based paint, according to researchers with the Rutgers Environmental, Occupational and Health Sciences Institute in collaboration with community scientists: members of the general public who participate in data collection under the direction of scientists.
The study, published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, was conducted in the neighborhood of East Trenton, in Trenton, N.J., which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) added to the Superfund National Priorities List in 2025 after determining there was lead contamination in soil from 19th-century pottery manufacturing plants.
They found 86% of 242 bare surface soil samples collected exceeded the EPA’s 200 parts per million residential soil lead hazard level and nearly 94% exceeded screening levels for multiple sources of lead exposure. “This is especially concerning because all samples were collected from bare soil at the surface, which is the most likely to be accessed by children or tracked into homes,” said Sean Stratton, a recent Rutgers School of Public Health PhD graduate and lead author of the study.
Read More: Rutgers
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