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EFFECT OF AMENDMENTS ON THE TRANSPORT AND LEACHING OF LEAD IN POLLUTED SOILS **

Abstract

Mining is essential for acquiring a lot of the natural resources that humans require in their daily lives. Unfortunately, mining activities have resulted in widespread contamination of soils and negatively impacted people and the environment around the world. This project is part of a larger NSF IRES project and assesses the impacts of various soil amendments on the bioavailability and mobility of lead in soils. The objective of the study is to understand how these amendments affect the leaching of heavy metals and nutrients from polluted soils into groundwater. A greenhouse pot-study was conducted using heavy metal-contaminated soils, biochar, compost, and hyperaccumulator plants to investigate the influence of soil amendments on heavy metal leaching. X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry was used to analyze the initial and final concentrations of lead in the soils, while spectrophotometry and chromatography were employed to analyze the leachate collected. Then a study was conducted in the field to investigate naturally contaminated sites in Zambia. Intact soil cores for laboratory column experiments were collected from the contaminated sites. Leachate from the soil cores was collected and analyzed for lead and nutrients. Preliminary results suggest that compost retains lead in the soils by about 30% when compared to unamended soils and other treatments. Being able to determine which amendments minimize the leaching of lead can be used to develop best management practices and guidelines for amending mining wastelands and tailing dumps. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2107177.

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