Abstract
Concerns have been expressed that dust from the minerals processing facilities at Karumba Queensland Australia have resulted in elevated lead (Pb) concentrations in rain water tanks. The ores derived from the Century mine some 304 km from the port. High precision Pb isotopic measurements on environmental samples have been undertaken to evaluate the source of Pb in rainwaters and acid digests from roof wipes and gutter wipes. There does not appear to be any relationship between sample location and the processing facility but samples from the area subject to the prevailing winds show the highest contribution of Century Pb. All gutter wipes (82 to 1270 µg Pb/wipe) have contributions of Century ore ranging from 87% to 96%. The contribution of Century ore to five roof wipes (22 to 88 µg Pb/wipe) ranges from 89% to 97% and in the other two samples there is a mix of Century and Broken Hill Pb. Three of the seven rainwater have contributions of Century ore Pb ranging from 33% to 75%. Two of the other four rainwater samples have the highest water Pb concentrations of 88 and 100 µg/L and their isotopic data show Broken Hill Pb contributions ranging from 77% to 80%. The source of the Broken Hill Pb is probably from the galvanized roofing material and/or brass fittings in the rainwater tanks. The discrimination between various sources is only detectable using high precision 204Pb-based isotopic ratios and not the now common inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS ) data presentations of the higher abundance isotopes 208Pb, 207Pb and 206Pb. Isotopic results for the waters demonstrate that apportioning blame where there is an obvious point source may not always be the correct conclusion. Nevertheless the isotopic data for the gutter wipes indicates that there was widespread contamination from the processing facilities throughout the town.
Highlights
Ore processing and handling facilities are commonly located in harbours where potential exposure of urban neighbourhoods can occur
It is not possible to state anything definite about distance from the processing facility because of the small number of samples and because four out of seven rainwater samples appear to have a significant contribution of Broken Hill Pb
Five wipe samples with the lowest 206 Pb/204 Pb ratios and highest proportion of Century Pb are from area E, the Highbanks area south-west of the processing facility and the dominant prevailing wind direction in the afternoon (Figure S8)
Summary
Ore processing and handling facilities are commonly located in harbours where potential exposure of urban neighbourhoods can occur. Some examples where contamination arising from bulk mineral rail transport and port unloading and loading has taken place include Callao Peru [1], Alaska [2], Russia [3], Esperance in Western Australia [4,5] and Townsville Queensland Australia [6]. Res. Public Health 2016, 13, 243; doi:10.3390/ijerph13020243 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph debris was collected from a 50 mm length of gutter. Public Health 2016, 13, 243; doi:10.3390/ijerph13020243 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph debris was collected from a 50 mm length of gutter This was necessary as there was a build-up of leaves in the gutter. It was assumed that the leaf litter would host dust fall e.g., that which fell onto the nearby trees and into the gutter
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