Ministers have launched a third review into the risks posed to human health by abandoned metals mines in England in Wales after a Financial Times investigation.
Nottingham university is probing “the health impacts and risks to humans, wildlife and the environment due to heavy metals discharged from abandoned metal mines to ground and surface waters and local soil environment”, under a contract awarded by the government.
The UK has 6,630 disused industrial lead mines — with more than half in England alone — that continue to disperse the metal into the environment. Lead can accumulate in waterways and soil before being consumed by animals and entering the food chain.
Consumed by humans, the metal has a devastating impact on almost every organ in the body, with any level of exposure capable of having a harmful effect.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which commissioned the review last year, declined to comment.
But government officials said the review was looking into existing evidence and data around the effects and risks on animals and humans from land and water contaminated by metals.
The review, which is to cost £114,250, follows separate probes by England’s environmental watchdog and food standards regulator. The findings are due to be published in October, the officials added.
The academics leading the report previously worked on a study funded by the Welsh government, which identified potentially harmful levels of lead in eggs produced on two small farms downstream from abandoned lead mines in west Wales.
A young child eating one or two of the eggs a day “could become cognitively impaired”, according to their research. Small-scale studies of vegetables grown on the farms indicated they also contained “elevated, and potentially toxic, concentrations” of lead.
The UK’s Veterinary Medicines Directorate, an agency of the environment department, tests just 400 to 450 samples of meat, milk, fish and honey for the presence of lead and other heavy metals each year.
Experts say testing such a small number of food items offers an insufficient assessment. In February, the FT identified two decades of evidence detailing how hundreds of farm animals in England suffered lead poisoning after being reared near abandoned metal mines.
Officials have also previously said that regulatory standards are not strong enough to monitor this industrial legacy and its impact on human health.
After the FT’s investigation last year, the Environment Agency was ordered by the government to find out if local councils were identifying contaminated land downstream of historic lead workings.
The Food Standards Agency has also said it will investigate lead levels in food produced near abandoned sites.
