Heavy metals in urban soils of East St. Louis, IL, part I: Total concentration of heavy metals in soils

The city of East St. Louis, IL, has a history of abundant industrial activi ties including smelters of ferrous and nonferrous metals, a coal-fired powe r plant, companies that produce organic and inorganic chemicals, and petrol eum refineries. A protocol for soil analysis was developed to produce suffi cient information on the extent of heavy metal contamination in East St. Lo uis soils. Soil cores representing every borough of East St. Louis were ana lyzed for heavy metals-As, Cd, Cu, Cr, Hg, Ni, yb, Sb, Sn, and Zn. The tops oil contained heavy metal concentrations as high as 12.5 ppm Cd, 14,400 ppm Cu, ppm quantities of Hg, 1860 ppm Pb, 40 ppm Sb, 1130 ppm Sn, and 10,360 ppm Zn. Concentrations of Sb, Cu, and Cd were well correlated with Zn conce ntrations, suggesting a similar primary industrial source. In a sandy loam soil from a vacated rail depot near the bank of the Mississippi River, the metals were evenly distributed down to a 38-cm depth. The clay soils within a half-mile downwind of the Zn smelter and Cu products company contained e levated Cd (81 ppm), Cu (340 ppm), Ph (700 ppm), and Zn (6000 ppm) and disp layed a systematic drop in concentration of these metals with depth. This s tudy demonstrates the often high concentration of heavy metals heterogeneou sly distributed in the soil and provides baseline data for continuing studi es of heavy metal soil leachability.