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Soil Amendment Heavy Metal Data Analysis |
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Soil Amendment Heavy Metal Data Analysis |
The data shown in the documents below is from a database owned and managed by the Washington State Department of Agriculture. It includes heavy metal data analyses for the commercial products sold in Washington State. The manufacturers provide the data: IERE has performed no quality assurance on the data provided. The data used was current as of February 2003. It contained information on 345 manufacturers, with a total of 3,411 products.
We analyzed the data by dividing the results into three groups:
- soil amendments with metal (arsenic, lead and cadmium) concentrations below US average soil backgroundi;
- soil amendments with at least one metal concentration above the Washington State clean up standardsii; and
- those in-between.
Some of the data was expressed as being below a detection limit. In that case, we assumed that the concentration was the detection limit. Different manufacturers’ analyses had different limits of detection, and some of the limits of detection were higher than the background. In this case, the product was coded as being more contaminated than is actually the case. This resulted in a maximum of 622 products (18%) being misclassified as above background.
In 32 cases (0.9%), the products had no manufacturer’s data. In that case, they were scored as being above the cleanup standards.
Fertilizer Lists
Fertilizers with heavy metals below background - sorted by Product Name / by Manufacturer
Fertilizers with heavy metals between background and cleanup standards - sorted by Product Name / by Manufacturer
Fertilizers with heavy metals above cleanup standards - sorted by Product Name / by Manufacturer
i ATSDR Fact sheets for Arsenic, Lead and Cadmium http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaq.html
ii http://www.leg.wa.gov/RCW/index.cfm?fuseaction=chapterdigest&chapter=70.105D