[CPEO-BIF] Kansas State U. community garden research

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Researchers Work to Ensure Safety of Urban Gardens
K-State’s National 'Brownfields' Research Funded by EPA


Kansas City infoZine
April 29, 2010


Manhattan, KS - Spring is in the air and urban gardens are sprouting up 
all over the country.

"Increasingly, urban agriculture is being done on a community basis, 
rather than an individual basis," said Kansas State University assistant 
professor of agronomy, Ganga Hettiarachchi. "There are now more than 
18,000 community gardens in the U.S. and Canada," she said, citing 
American Community Gardening Association data.

Some of those gardens are on once-vacant lots and land where buildings 
once sat. Such locations are convenient for city-dwellers and make 
productive use of land that otherwise might be weedy, trash-strewn lots. 
There is a potential downside, however.

The problem in using properties - typically called brownfields - that 
may have been the site of anything from auto body shops to manufacturing 
facilities to gas stations, is that the soil on some of those properties 
can pose health risks if it is contaminated with heavy metals, 
metalloids or organic compounds, Hettiarachchi said.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/40966/

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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