Anthony Morrison

An assessment of the effectiveness of lead pollution reduction strategies in North Lake Macquarie, NSW, Australia

The North Lake Macquarie area of NSW, Australia, principally the suburbs of Boolaroo, Argenton and Speers Point, has been significantly polluted by lead emissions emanating from the Pasminco Metals Smelter (Cockle Creek). A lead accessibility reduction program has been carried out in North Lake Macquarie since 1991. The primary measure of success for the program is reduced blood lead levels, particularly in children. From 1991 to 2000 average child blood lead levels have decreased from 11 to 7.5 microg/dl. However, the lead accessibility reduction programs had failed to eliminate child blood lead levels that exceed the National Health and Medical Research Council maximum goal of 10 microg/dl, and a number of children still retain blood lead levels >25 microg/dl. Many factors have contributed to this failure, notably the continued presence of airborne high lead pollutants in ambient air, dusts and soil in residential areas. Significant reductions in lead mass emissions from 92 tonnes per annum (p.a.) in 1988 to approximately 15 tonnes p.a. to September 2000 have been achieved by the smelter operator. However, the reductions have been insufficient to ensure that ambient air quality consent conditions of 1 microg/m(3) are achieved in the residential areas surrounding the smelter. Sampling by the smelter operator also provides confirmation of continued deposition of high lead dusts in residential areas. The continued dust deposition places a high burden on the local community which must maintain obsessive levels of household cleanliness in order to minimise lead uptake from dusts deposited within the home and community. Evidence exists of institutional failure that may also have limited the success of the program. These failures include the use of inappropriate standards and non-approved techniques in remediation, lack of coordination between various arms of government and an unwillingness to enforce consent conditions. The smelter operator has also failed to proactively seek changes which would minimise community harm. It is suggested that for child blood lead levels to be further reduced it may be necessary to impose added restrictions on smelter emissions. Firstly, however, current emission requirements should be mandated and methodologies for remediation of historical lead depositions should also follow accepted standards and practices to maximise the benefits of the work to the affected community.

Changes in diffusivity due to sintering in metallized iron oxide pellets

The work discussed in this communication forms part of a much larger study aimed at the mathematical and experimental simulation of direct reduction processes occurring in shaft furnaces of the Midrex, HyL III, Purofer, and Nippon Steel Corporation types. In these processes, iron oxide burdens are subjected to environments in which both the temperature and gas compositions change continuously. Previous work1 showed that reduction under such non-isothermal conditions caused iron oxide pellets initially to swell by up to 10 pct and then shrink to give overall pellet contractions of up to 15 pct by the latter stages of reduction. Microstructural examination indicated that the pellet contractions were due to sintering of the porous, high surface-area iron formed in the initial stages of reduction. The sintering reaction is advantageous in that it tends to increase the strength of the metallized pellets;2 however, the accompanying structural changes can also impede the diffusion of reacting gases into and out of the pellets and thus retard the reaction rates.

Uncovering pathways of metal contamination with microscopic techniques and lead isotopic tracing

ABSTRACT Over several decades, there has been considerable disagreement about heavy-metal contamination in mining communities as to whether the contamination arose from natural processes such as oxidation and weathering over millennia or from mining activities. More sophisticated geochemical methods and isotopic tracing especially for lead (Pb) may or may not provide definitive answers. We suggest that relatively simple approaches using the microscopic techniques of optical microscopy complemented by scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive analyses along with X-ray diffraction can provide definitive answers to the conundrum. Heavy liquid and –53 + 48 µm fractions of soil, pavement and gutter sweepings, dust depositional gauges, long-term dust accumulation, vacuum cleaner dust and ceiling dust were investigated using the above methods. The most common Pb-bearing particles consisted of Pb, Fe, Mn, Al, Si and O. The majority of grains were rounded with cavities and overgrowths, and showed evidence of transport and recrystallisation, probably deriving from post-mining activities and/or earlier geological processes. A small number of samples from ceiling dust, pavement sweepings, vacuum cleaner dust and long-term dust accumulation contained galena with a high degree of crystallinity suggesting a derivation from recent mining and ore concentration activities. High-precision Pb isotopic analyses showed that some samples with extensive oxidation and weathering had absorbed Pb from sources other than mine Pb, and these could be from gasoline, paint or weathering of the country rocks.