[CPEO-BIF] Using Historical Records to Assess Environmental Conditions at Community Gardens

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Despite the health and community benefits of urban gardening - fresh  
and nutritious food, physical activity, more attractive neighborhoods  
- growing food in urban soils poses potential risks. In older urban  
neighborhoods, before zoning segregated different land uses, housing  
for workers was often built within walking distance of chrome plating  
shops, leather tanners, mills, and so on. For decades, toxic  
emissions from these factories, such as cancer-causing hexavalent  
chromium, were carried in the air and deposited on urban surfaces and  
in the soil. However, to develop safe gardening strategies,  
prospective community gardeners can assess environmental conditions  
on their plots by consulting historical records, maps, and  
environmental data bases, as well as interviewing neighbors.

To download Robert Hersh's 13-page 3.4 MB report, go to
http://www.cpeo.org/pubs/AssessingGardens.pdf

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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