MONITORING LEAD POLLUTION NEAR A STORAGE BATTERY RECYCLING PLANT IN TAIWAN, REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA

This study presents the distribution of blood lead levels and lead in various environmental samples (water sediments, soils, and air) near t he Shing-Yie storage battery recycling plant in Taiwan before (July 19 90 to June 1991) and after (July 1992 to June 1993) amelioration. Befo re amelioration, the average blood lead levels in the neighborhood of the plant were in the range of 10.55 +/- 5.7 to 12.28 +/- 7.9 mu g/dl. After amelioration, relatively lower average concentrations of blood lead (range 8.35 +/- 3.0 to 9.13 +/- 2.5 mu g/dl) were generally found ; however, these averages were still higher than that (7.79 +/- 3.5 mu g/dl) from other lead-unpolluted areas of Taiwan. An exceedingly high geometric mean (GM) lead concentration (128 mu g/L) was found in the downstream river water of the Tawulum River passing by the plant. The concentrations of lead (GM = 372 and 418 mu g/g) in the downstream riv er sediments were higher than those (GM = 123 and 158 mu g/g) in the u pstream river sediments before and after amelioration, respectively. F urthermore, lead species in river sediments were analyzed by a sequent ial leaching technique. The sum of phases I, II, and III accounted for 83.7% of total lead at station R(2) (nearest to the plant). Maximum l ead concentration (GM = 2402 mu g/g) in dust at the soil surface from station S-1 (nearest to the plant) was much higher than those from the other stations by about 18 times before amelioration. However, the ma ximum value dropped to 1,155 mu g/g after amelioration. On the whole, the geometric mean concentration of lead in dust at the soil surface n earest to the plant was >1,000 mu g/g and decreased to <100 mu g/g in the 15-30 cm depth soil about 2 km away from the plant. Before amelior ation, the geometric mean lead concentration of 4.57 mu g/m(3) (range 0.102-37.6 mu g/m(3)) in the air near the plant was higher than that a t the background locations, the geometric mean value of which was 0.08 mu g/m(3).