Assessing Residential Exposures to Pesticides and the Relation to a Former Pesticide Formulating Facility. P. J. Sheehan and B. Finley, Exponent
From the 1950’s through the 1970’s residential neighborhoods were built in the vicinity of many operating industrial facilities. During that period, these facilities had fewer emission controls than are required of them today. Questions now posed to risk assessors include "Were these neighborhoods historically exposed to chemical emissions from these facilities?" and "Are current residents exposed through the accumulation of chemicals on their property?" This presentation provides a description of an evaluation to address these questions for a neighborhood surrounding a former pesticide formulating facility. Representative soil samples were collected from residential lots in the vicinity of the former facility and from local but distant areas unlikely to have been influenced by the former facility (reference areas) and were analyzed for pesticides. These data were used to evaluate whether current pesticide concentrations in soil in residential lots pose significant health risks to residents and whether the former facility was the probable source of measured pesticides. The concentrations of pesticides in residential soils were below health-based criteria for residential soils indicating that current exposure is negligible. The pattern of pesticides on the residential lots also was not consistent with the former facility as the source of these chemicals. Chemical fingerprinting techniques showed a different suite of pesticide compounds on residential lots than on the former facility. The concentrations and fingerprint of pesticides on residential lots were not significantly different than those in reference soils. In addition, the spatial pattern of the most commonly detected pesticides on the lots appeared random and was inconsistent with the distinct pattern expected from windblown deposition from a single source.
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