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| In my growing frustration with trying to get rabbits away from my garden, I purchased a BB gun and picked up some pointed pellets. Making sure I could hit the broad side of a barn, I decided to throw a pop can up in the garden and put 30-40 shots to it. The problem comes-- when I look at the pellet packaging--lead pellets. Is this going to be a problem with contaminating the soil? Thanks in advance |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by blazeaglory 10 SZ22 OC Ca (My Page) on Thu, Jun 14, 12 at 0:51
| Try not to shoot towards your garden anymore. If you have to set your can up in front of a piece of ply wood and angle it so the lead slugs will hit it and slide down the angle and land at the base. With the ply wood method they will be easy to find right at the bottom. Or just shoot somewhere that you will not plant in. I wouldn't want lead in my soil. |
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| The problem with lead contamination is not so much the soil, although that may be, but that wild life ingests the pellets. Plants do not uptake heavy metals although those heavey metals can be on the food you eat, especially root crops. |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Thu, Jun 14, 12 at 11:33
| A few shots will not have a significant effect, but if you're planning on shootin' varmints regularly, get some lead-free shot. Should be easy to find. |
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| We may be talking apples and oranges here. I have a Walter BB gun which fires round copper-colored ammo of 4.5mm. I also have a Gammo .177 pellet rifle which fires soft lead shaped ammo. If you have a airgun which fires .177 or .22 PELLETS you may not be able to get non-lead projectile. To restate, it sounds like you have a pellet air gun, which fires soft lead pellets. But you use the words 'pellet' and 'BB' as interchangeable, and I do not think they are such. These comments address inexpensive airguns. There are a number of very powerful airguns which I am not familiar with. Ammo for these guns may be different. As an example, .22 conventional ammo is soft lead, but .221, .222, and .223 ammo is all jacketed with copper or aluminium due to higher speeds. A google search may be able to provide you with better information. |
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| It took 30-40 shots to hit the can?? ;-) Lloyd |
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- Posted by blazeaglory 10 SZ22 OC Ca (My Page) on Fri, Jun 15, 12 at 23:56
| I wouldn't know I use double 00 in the pistol grip and 5.56 steel core M855 in the AR. The only lead rounds I use are in my .45 and .357....Oh wait were talking about pellet guns, I forgot;-) |
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| KIMMSR!! Please stop posting about subjects about which you have no knowledge. "Plants do not take up heavy metals...." is sooooo incorrect. Please do two minutes of research to find out how important phyto-remediation is in the reclamation of strip mines, of plant based water reclamation projects, |
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| Please accept my apology, kimmsr, for being so unkind. It was uncalled for. |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Tue, Jun 19, 12 at 16:33
| I was at a seminar with an EPA expert in Brownfields the other day, and the subject of urban ag came up. I asked if EPA had made any progress in determining safe levels for common contaminants related to gardening and farming, since there are readily available numbers for living on a site and working there, but not for farming or gardening specifically. His answer - which did not satisfy me - was that plants don't absorb toxins so the acceptable levels are so high that it is not a problem, and usually they recommend using raised beds for urban gardens just to make people feel better. Really? Since there are scores of potential contaminants, I just don't buy it. Yes, there are phytoremediation techniques, not only for metals (mustards take up Pb, IIRC) but for volatiles (poplars and other woody plants suck up TCE and other solvents and transpire them into the air). I don't think this topic has reached a stable place yet, science-wise. It's evolving. |
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| We don't know what we don't know yet? Lloyd |
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| Lloyd, Perhaps we don't yet know what we know that we don't know that we know. |
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| Unless you have ducks, geese or chicken feeding in your garden the lead projectiles are of zero concern. |
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| As an inveterate .177 pellet gun user, a few points. You'll get far more lead on yourself just handling the pellets and loading the thing, so either wear gloves or wash your hands carefully after using the thing. There was something about kids holding them in their mouths as well, and you may see some pretty dire warnings on the containers about that. I wouldn't worry about the pellets in the garden contaminating the food - unless you're shooting thousands of the things, over the years. |
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| Since we use plants in phytoremediation to clean up soil and water polluted with heavy metals, then, obviously, plants can absorb heavy metals. And, since we use plants to clean up polluted air, then, obviously, plants can absorb pollutants from the air. Funny how we believe to be true what we need to be true even when we believe contrary things in different cases. Seriously, the EPA guy told you that plants grown in urban areas don't absorb any of that pollution?? The question is, what form the heavy metals have to be in for plants to absorb them. That I don't know, not being strong on chemistry. They do have to be in a particular chemical form to be absorbed. For instance when cattails are used to clean up metals in sewage, the chemicals they pick up are in one form, but then the chemicals are sequestered in the plant in a different form that is less toxic - that's the reason given why plants used in phytoremediation do not themselves become toxic waste. What is known, is that the main hazard with lead ammo, is when it is eaten by wildlife, particularly water birds. The birds get lead poisoning and can die, and anything eating the birds can also get lead poisoning. Swans and geese die from lead poisoning around here, and in California in the 70s and 80s the CA condor was dying out from lead poisoning from lead pellets in the dead animals they were eating. I supposed if you dumped a pile of pellets in your garden, and then grew root crops, you could have a problem with dust coming off the pellets getting on your food. And if you plan on eating the rabbits you shoot, pick out the pellets first. And wear gloves when handling dead rabbits, they can carry tularemia. |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Mon, Jun 25, 12 at 14:35
| reg, I will admit the EPA person was not a highly technical staffer. Not a risk assessor, toxicologist, remedial project manager, etc. More of an outreach person. Since my job includes a bit of all of those, I think I knew more about the topic before I asked the question, so it wasn't really fair. :-p |
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| With the birds, I imagine the lead pellets get into the gizzard where they're ground into dust and almost completely absorbed. /theory, that |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Tue, Jun 26, 12 at 15:18
| Not sure about that, but it wouldn't take complete absorption to contaminate the bird. Just the acid environment of the stomach would dissolve the oxide coating off the pellet. A little dab'll do ya. Or, if the pellet is still in the gizzard and it's eaten by a predator, the eater gets the whole pellet again. |
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- Posted by lisascenic (My Page) on Tue, Jul 3, 12 at 11:32
| Consumption of lead shot (in animal carcasses) is the primary reason the California Condor was pushed to the brink of extinction. |
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| I know thats why they outlawed lead shot for ducks - the eagles were dying from the lead as well. Thinking of the shooting range down the highway where the soil, bulldozed up again and again into back stops, is now grey with the lead from who knows how many decades of guys shooting targets. Not much is growing there. |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Thu, Jul 5, 12 at 10:39
| Old shooting ranges can be a b!tch to clean up. Very expensive to remove and/or treat the soil. |
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| I used to be one of those kids carrying pellets in my lip like Copenhagen..... Hmmm that explains a lot! Lol. I'm with Lloyd it never should have taken so many shots to hit the can. ;-) maybe you should borrow a bigger gun from blaze, but you won't know til you know lol. I'm thinking if you go to the spot where the can was sitting and take out a few shovels of dirt you'll get the pellets out. You'd be surprised how quickly dirt stops bullets. Bullets from high powered rifles rarely travel farther than 6-8" into a dirt bank when fired from 40yds away. |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Wed, Aug 8, 12 at 10:46
| In the grand scheme of things, 30-40 pellets is not that much. I don't think I'd chase after them myself. BTW, jared may be a better shot than we think. He didn't say it took that may to *hit* it, he said he put that many *into it*. For all we know he never missed! :-o |
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| That may be true Tox but its much more fun giving him a hard time than it is talking him up. Party pooper lol |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Wed, Aug 8, 12 at 17:16
| Smile when you say that, pardner. Ol' Daisy here is freshly loaded. :-] |
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