Lead worries?!?!

[Folly's place]

So glad I didn't go with granite countertops!
The earth around old painted buildings would be a concern, as I mentioned.
Us older folks remember lead as a common substance, handled with no concerns.
Mary

 

[Shellebelle920]

Back in the late 2000's I worked with a bunch of scientists testing granite countertop materials for radiation hazards. Some types and some slabs or granite were crazy radioactive, the record slab found was hundreds and hundreds times hotter than normal background radiation levels and there were plenty of types and slabs in local slab yards that were five, six, even ten times background radiation levels. Studies were done on the radon gas and there were homes found that had high levels of radon gas due to the nuclear decay chain in the granite and after removal the levels dropped back to normal for the area. For the most part granite turned out reasonably alright if you were lucky and didn't get a super hot slab installed in your kitchen.

But, as we were studying this issue we were using email threads with two or three dozen scientists contributing and one dude was a uranium geologist who mentioned that Uranium wasn't the only heavy metal present in granite.

Fast forward about nine months, a three ton shipment of granite samples owned by Silestone had been sent to Israel for testing and the deal fell through on the testing so Silestone shipped the samples to me. I loaded about a ton of them into a truck and ran them up to a geologist in Colorado Springs CO and had them XRF gun tested. Holy moly, those granite samples were loaded with all sorts of heavy metals including massive amounts of lead. Cadium, chromium, arsenic, all of the radioactive decay chain products which was to be expected.

Many heavy metals aren't "bio available" in their native state. Like Iron, not much iron is found in nature as pure iron because oxygen eats it up and coverts it into rust. People read sci fi stories about an exotic planet with a corrosive atmosphere, well that would be earth believe it or not. Oxygen is highly corrosive. So where a heavy metal has been exposed in an ore (chicken grit is an example) the heavy metal might be oxidized enough to be unavailable due to the oxidation. Or a surface layer has been oxidized and the underlying element is still quite toxic and bio available. You just never know.

What we learned was that many things can reverse the oxidation. Moisture, oil from a pair of human hands or skin, cleaning products like soap, changes in the alkaline state (changes in pH), but ingestion was the quickest and most sure change factor. Stomachs have acid so the pH changes rapidly and severely and that is why little Billy eating paint chips is not a good thing.

Same with your chickens. The grit you purchase or that the birds pick up is far more likely to have lead and other toxic heavy metals than the oyster shell you feed them. Pollution is solved for the most part by dilution, the heavy metals will concentrate in something that eats a lot of toxic elements which is why predator species usually accumulate more toxic heavy metals than the prey species that pick up the toxins from vegetation or eating soil for minerals.

If you are worried about lead, go buy a lead test kit from a big box store or order a few online. Test the grit, oyster shell, or dirt and while not completely reliable it will show a result if you have mass contamination.

And don't put food on granite countertops even if you recently cleaned the top! The stuff is bacteria haven too with bacterial living inside the granite, something found a mile below the surface of the earth and from samples taken in biological secure fashion that prevented contamination. Granite is teeming with bacteria and most people aren't aware of that.

That is all REALLY interesting. I never would have thought to worry about the grit, but you’re right. I’m not super worried about lead, but when I read about some BYC’s having a higher concentration of lead in their shells than commercial-laid eggs, I was a bit taken aback. I had always assumed that a ByC egg was superior in every way to commercial eggs. So I wondered what information was out there and was looking for opinions/facts from others who have more chicken knowledge than I do. Thank you for the great post.

 

[Al Gerhart]

All the heavy metals that we mine and use including Pb come from some form of rock, granite is one of the most common. Just stands to reason what ever is in the rock is gonna be in the countertop or grit.

 

[cmfarm]

Back in the late 2000's I worked with a bunch of scientists testing granite countertop materials for radiation hazards. Some types and some slabs or granite were crazy radioactive, the record slab found was hundreds and hundreds times hotter than normal background radiation levels and there were plenty of types and slabs in local slab yards that were five, six, even ten times background radiation levels. Studies were done on the radon gas and there were homes found that had high levels of radon gas due to the nuclear decay chain in the granite and after removal the levels dropped back to normal for the area. For the most part granite turned out reasonably alright if you were lucky and didn't get a super hot slab installed in your kitchen.

But, as we were studying this issue we were using email threads with two or three dozen scientists contributing and one dude was a uranium geologist who mentioned that Uranium wasn't the only heavy metal present in granite.

Fast forward about nine months, a three ton shipment of granite samples owned by Silestone had been sent to Israel for testing and the deal fell through on the testing so Silestone shipped the samples to me. I loaded about a ton of them into a truck and ran them up to a geologist in Colorado Springs CO and had them XRF gun tested. Holy moly, those granite samples were loaded with all sorts of heavy metals including massive amounts of lead. Cadium, chromium, arsenic, all of the radioactive decay chain products which was to be expected.

Many heavy metals aren't "bio available" in their native state. Like Iron, not much iron is found in nature as pure iron because oxygen eats it up and coverts it into rust. People read sci fi stories about an exotic planet with a corrosive atmosphere, well that would be earth believe it or not. Oxygen is highly corrosive. So where a heavy metal has been exposed in an ore (chicken grit is an example) the heavy metal might be oxidized enough to be unavailable due to the oxidation. Or a surface layer has been oxidized and the underlying element is still quite toxic and bio available. You just never know.

What we learned was that many things can reverse the oxidation. Moisture, oil from a pair of human hands or skin, cleaning products like soap, changes in the alkaline state (changes in pH), but ingestion was the quickest and most sure change factor. Stomachs have acid so the pH changes rapidly and severely and that is why little Billy eating paint chips is not a good thing.



Same with your chickens. The grit you purchase or that the birds pick up is far more likely to have lead and other toxic heavy metals than the oyster shell you feed them. Pollution is solved for the most part by dilution, the heavy metals will concentrate in something that eats a lot of toxic elements which is why predator species usually accumulate more toxic heavy metals than the prey species that pick up the toxins from vegetation or eating soil for minerals.

If you are worried about lead, go buy a lead test kit from a big box store or order a few online. Test the grit, oyster shell, or dirt and while not completely reliable it will show a result if you have mass contamination.

And don't put food on granite countertops even if you recently cleaned the top! The stuff is bacteria haven too with bacterial living inside the granite, something found a mile below the surface of the earth and from samples taken in biological secure fashion that prevented contamination. Granite is teeming with bacteria and most people aren't aware of that.

Is granite countertops still found to be radioactive or are they doing things differently now to prevent that issue (or perhaps they are tested before they are installed?) My parents are having a house built and are getting granite counter tops so now you have me worried.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Is granite countertops still found to be radioactive or are they doing things differently now to prevent that issue (or perhaps they are tested before they are installed?) My parents are having a house built and are getting granite counter tops so now you have me worried.

Nothing changed at all. A few importers bought radiation survey equipment and started weeding out the worst slabs. But it remains legal to import, fabricate, sell, and install extremely radioactive materials as countertops because it is a "natural" product.

During all of this interest and testing I sent an email to the NRC asking if it was legal to fabricate a product that was around ten to twelve times background radiation levels. Gave them a video of the meter readings. The response back was no, it was a federal crime to work such material outside a properly designed facilty that was monitored by a qualified expert in measuring radiation and protecting employees. I sent back the pictures of the source, a granite slab for sale at a slab yard here in OKC and was told of the natural product exception.

The radon industry is an unwanted step child of the U.S. radiation community. They are tolerated and sanctioned by the larger radiation community but just barely so and only because they can keep the radon folks muzzled and under control. Why? Because groups like the Health Physics Society are mostly funded and mostly employed by the nuclear power companies or nuclear medicine. So if you make people afraid of extra radiation you cut into their profits.

Bottom line is this. When a site is cleaned up it has to be over 25 mrem (4 to 10 mrem is average background in most places) and it needs to be cleaned to below 25mrem. Yet we found granite slabs that averaged over 50 mrem, usually one quarter to one third of the slabs in a slab yard, and it was not uncommon to find 500 and even 1000 mrem hot spots in slabs.

China and Europe have limits on radiation levels of building material, the U.S. doesn't. When we tried fixing that the stone industry spent over a million dollars a year fighting back and they even attacked the scientists that were helping pro bono, getting a few of them de certified. The reason was not that these experts were wrong, the reason was they advanced an opinion before the testing was 100% completed and thus could have been wrong. The final studies were presented at the national conventions of the Health Physics Society and at several conventions for the Radon industry. All the experts read, listened, and commented "Huh, we got a problem." and nothing was done.

I would purchase a good radiation meter before purchasing any granite. You need a low level device, not the standard geiger counter. Find one for testing food or water as they are more sensitive or one of the belt loop pager looking devices used to protect x ray techs. You can also get fairly cheap Russian models or find a used PM1703. Those things can spot a nuclear patient (radioisotopes used for screening) passing you in a car on a freeway. Most of the units on Amazon are set to go off too high, 100 mrem, find one that measures down to at least 10 mrem. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SZ2HXQ/?tag=backy-20

Here is a better one but it reads in mcSv/hr so you will need to either use that standard or do the math to mrems. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PMNKX6M/?tag=backy-20

There is radiation everywhere but there is no reason to bring more into your home. ALARA, As Low As Reasonably Achievable is the standard.

 

[Folly's place]

Thanks for the information!
Mary

 

[Grace Brooks]

Back in the late 2000's I worked with a bunch of scientists testing granite countertop materials for radiation hazards. Some types and some slabs or granite were crazy radioactive, the record slab found was hundreds and hundreds times hotter than normal background radiation levels and there were plenty of types and slabs in local slab yards that were five, six, even ten times background radiation levels. Studies were done on the radon gas and there were homes found that had high levels of radon gas due to the nuclear decay chain in the granite and after removal the levels dropped back to normal for the area. For the most part granite turned out reasonably alright if you were lucky and didn't get a super hot slab installed in your kitchen.

But, as we were studying this issue we were using email threads with two or three dozen scientists contributing and one dude was a uranium geologist who mentioned that Uranium wasn't the only heavy metal present in granite.

Fast forward about nine months, a three ton shipment of granite samples owned by Silestone had been sent to Israel for testing and the deal fell through on the testing so Silestone shipped the samples to me. I loaded about a ton of them into a truck and ran them up to a geologist in Colorado Springs CO and had them XRF gun tested. Holy moly, those granite samples were loaded with all sorts of heavy metals including massive amounts of lead. Cadium, chromium, arsenic, all of the radioactive decay chain products which was to be expected.

Many heavy metals aren't "bio available" in their native state. Like Iron, not much iron is found in nature as pure iron because oxygen eats it up and coverts it into rust. People read sci fi stories about an exotic planet with a corrosive atmosphere, well that would be earth believe it or not. Oxygen is highly corrosive. So where a heavy metal has been exposed in an ore (chicken grit is an example) the heavy metal might be oxidized enough to be unavailable due to the oxidation. Or a surface layer has been oxidized and the underlying element is still quite toxic and bio available. You just never know.

What we learned was that many things can reverse the oxidation. Moisture, oil from a pair of human hands or skin, cleaning products like soap, changes in the alkaline state (changes in pH), but ingestion was the quickest and most sure change factor. Stomachs have acid so the pH changes rapidly and severely and that is why little Billy eating paint chips is not a good thing.

Same with your chickens. The grit you purchase or that the birds pick up is far more likely to have lead and other toxic heavy metals than the oyster shell you feed them. Pollution is solved for the most part by dilution, the heavy metals will concentrate in something that eats a lot of toxic elements which is why predator species usually accumulate more toxic heavy metals than the prey species that pick up the toxins from vegetation or eating soil for minerals.

If you are worried about lead, go buy a lead test kit from a big box store or order a few online. Test the grit, oyster shell, or dirt and while not completely reliable it will show a result if you have mass contamination.

And don't put food on granite countertops even if you recently cleaned the top! The stuff is bacteria haven too with bacterial living inside the granite, something found a mile below the surface of the earth and from samples taken in biological secure fashion that prevented contamination. Granite is teeming with bacteria and most people aren't aware of that.

This is incredibly helpful, thanks for posting this. Ever since I had my daughter, who is now 3, I have been trying to make sense of toxicity in our homes and understand what to prioritize and what to let go of. I found this post because we found out we have lead paint on the front of our house and from there I went down a lead rabbit hole. I have been trying to figure out if lead in galvanized steel hardware cloth is a problem, and this really helps put it in perspective. We are planning to buy a soil test kit soon, but we have already been eating from our organic veg garden for the last couple years, and I thought we were doing the right thing letting the baby pick strawberries and eat them- all back to nature and stuff. Now I'm not so sure. I really want to understand things from a chemistry perspective as you explained above. How did you learn all this/how can I learn it? I have a degree in Env Science, but there wasn't much chemistry. Any good book recommendations?

 

[boskelli1571]

This is incredibly helpful, thanks for posting this. Ever since I had my daughter, who is now 3, I have been trying to make sense of toxicity in our homes and understand what to prioritize and what to let go of. I found this post because we found out we have lead paint on the front of our house and from there I went down a lead rabbit hole. I have been trying to figure out if lead in galvanized steel hardware cloth is a problem, and this really helps put it in perspective. We are planning to buy a soil test kit soon, but we have already been eating from our organic veg garden for the last couple years, and I thought we were doing the right thing letting the baby pick strawberries and eat them- all back to nature and stuff. Now I'm not so sure. I really want to understand things from a chemistry perspective as you explained above. How did you learn all this/how can I learn it? I have a degree in Env Science, but there wasn't much chemistry. Any good book recommendations?

I don't have any recommendations for reading, sorry. I have come to the realization that probably everything 'manmade' has some downside to it. Realistically, you have to think about the level of exposure. Yes, galvanized steel does contain some lead, but it is probably a very small amount to say lead paint from 50 years ago.
The toxic element will leach out over time into the soil.
https://www.soils.org/about-soils/contaminants
If you are worried about toxicity of your soil, get it tested.

 

[Folly's place]

I agree that it's about actual amounts of this toxin or that, and there's no 'perfectly safe' toxin free anything. I grew up with lead paint on everything, DDT, other nasty products everywhere, useful, with positive qualities (DDT prevented many deaths from malaria) and later information about their dangers. Now we have plastics, again, with developing information about the downsides of their use.
In those good old days not so long ago, coal, and TB, and before that, sitting around a wood fire in the smoke.
Rambling on too much here!
Get the soil tested, it's easy to have done. The soil close to old painted structures especially may have lead, and finding out how much is good.
Eating strawberries out of the garden is the best! And snap peas, and peas, and asparagus! Home grown is wonderful, including those eggs and chickens...
Lead: While no level is good, most of us more mature folks likely have detectable lead levels, from times gone by, and we are still chugging along. i had mine done, and do have some, and the report said, basically, don't worry about it, not enough to treat.
Managing what's now known to be toxic, moving forward, is what we need to be doing.
Mary

 

[Chicklady707]

Back in the late 2000's I worked with a bunch of scientists testing granite countertop materials for radiation hazards. Some types and some slabs or granite were crazy radioactive, the record slab found was hundreds and hundreds times hotter than normal background radiation levels and there were plenty of types and slabs in local slab yards that were five, six, even ten times background radiation levels. Studies were done on the radon gas and there were homes found that had high levels of radon gas due to the nuclear decay chain in the granite and after removal the levels dropped back to normal for the area. For the most part granite turned out reasonably alright if you were lucky and didn't get a super hot slab installed in your kitchen.

But, as we were studying this issue we were using email threads with two or three dozen scientists contributing and one dude was a uranium geologist who mentioned that Uranium wasn't the only heavy metal present in granite.

Fast forward about nine months, a three ton shipment of granite samples owned by Silestone had been sent to Israel for testing and the deal fell through on the testing so Silestone shipped the samples to me. I loaded about a ton of them into a truck and ran them up to a geologist in Colorado Springs CO and had them XRF gun tested. Holy moly, those granite samples were loaded with all sorts of heavy metals including massive amounts of lead. Cadium, chromium, arsenic, all of the radioactive decay chain products which was to be expected.

Many heavy metals aren't "bio available" in their native state. Like Iron, not much iron is found in nature as pure iron because oxygen eats it up and coverts it into rust. People read sci fi stories about an exotic planet with a corrosive atmosphere, well that would be earth believe it or not. Oxygen is highly corrosive. So where a heavy metal has been exposed in an ore (chicken grit is an example) the heavy metal might be oxidized enough to be unavailable due to the oxidation. Or a surface layer has been oxidized and the underlying element is still quite toxic and bio available. You just never know.

What we learned was that many things can reverse the oxidation. Moisture, oil from a pair of human hands or skin, cleaning products like soap, changes in the alkaline state (changes in pH), but ingestion was the quickest and most sure change factor. Stomachs have acid so the pH changes rapidly and severely and that is why little Billy eating paint chips is not a good thing.

Same with your chickens. The grit you purchase or that the birds pick up is far more likely to have lead and other toxic heavy metals than the oyster shell you feed them. Pollution is solved for the most part by dilution, the heavy metals will concentrate in something that eats a lot of toxic elements which is why predator species usually accumulate more toxic heavy metals than the prey species that pick up the toxins from vegetation or eating soil for minerals.

If you are worried about lead, go buy a lead test kit from a big box store or order a few online. Test the grit, oyster shell, or dirt and while not completely reliable it will show a result if you have mass contamination.

And don't put food on granite countertops even if you recently cleaned the top! The stuff is bacteria haven too with bacterial living inside the granite, something found a mile below the surface of the earth and from samples taken in biological secure fashion that prevented contamination. Granite is teeming with bacteria and most people aren't aware of that.

Very interesting! Thank you for taking the time to write this and share your knowledge. You so much remind me of my father......very smart (but he never graduated school back then) and able to build/design/fix anything.