How Mining Contaminants Enter our Food Chain

Growing up in the Tri-State Mining District (TSMD), I was taught to not play in the dirt or creeks. This was a common rule among families because the soil and water were all potential sources of heavy metal poisoning. Of course, as a child we didn’t know this was the reason. We just thought that the dirt had bugs or germs that weren’t good for us.

However, the dangers go far beyond these worries. There are toxic heavy metals present in the soil and flowing through the creeks. While these may not be present in deadly concentrations, long-term exposure to elevated concentrations of these metals will likely have adverse health effects. In the TSMD, there was a mining legacy of lead and zinc, with much of these metals used in the World Wars coming from this mining district. This supply of metals brought great wealth to many mining companies, but the people living here were not so fortunate.

Chat, a name for toxic mining waste, started accumulating near mining sites. This chat contains all sorts of toxicants, and is extremely toxic to humans and the environment alike. In fact, before the dangers were known, families would use chat in their children’s sandboxes. During these years, there were many cases of lead poisoning in children. Even today, chat is found in the backyards of homes, with the owners clueless to the dangers of the gravel-like substance.

In places with current or prior mining activity, it is likely that there are chat piles close by. Even a small amount of chat incorporated into the soil of one’s lawn could pose a threat. If kids were playing in that contaminated soil, they are exposing themselves to possibly heavy metal poisoning. If a pet or the bottoms of shoes track in chat-laced-mud into the house, a toddler or baby crawling on the floor then putting their hands in their mouths are also extremely susceptible to heavy metal poisoning.

While the number of victims to this danger can be reduced by increasing societal awareness of this problem, the root cause will still be present. Instead, we must take steps to remediate contaminated soil, clean up the chat piles, reduce unnecessary mining activity, and educate children on the dangers of playing in the soil. These improvements will take time, they will take effort, but they are not impossible.

With this, I leave you with a task. Go and make a difference for others. If you know a family with kids, send them an article on the dangers of heavy metal contamination. It could very well even be this blog post. But no matter what, it is us the people who can make the difference.