Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIM[|]Metal emissions from legacy and active heavy industries pose a challenge for public health and sustainability when are located close urban/periurban areas. Street dusts are components within the exposure pathways to toxic metals for urban population, and metal distribution in this matrix has been used as a record of recent metal enrichment. This work studied the metal occurrence in street dusts in Quintero, Puchuncaví, and Concón urban areas near the industrial complex Ventanas in Central Chile. This complex has 16 companies, including thermoelectric plant, refinery, and distributor of chemicals. Serious pollution episodes have led the community and public media to call Quintero-Puchuncaví a “sacrifice area”, implying that such conditions are the cost of unsustainable socioeconomic progress. In 2015, the communes of Quintero, Puchuncavi and Concón were declared saturated zones for respirable fine particulate matter (PM2.5) according to the Chilean air pollution regulation. The air pollution prevention and decontamination plan were in place in 2019. It considered controls for PM, SO₂, NOx and VOCs. However, the spectrum of pollutants emitted from industrial sources is wider including toxic metals and metalloids.[¤]METHOD[|]A total of 242 street dust samples were collected in Quintero (75), Puchuncaví (93), and Concón (74) in 2022-2023. Metal(loid)s (As, Ca, Co, Cu, Fe, Mn, Pb and Zn) were analyzed with portable X-ray fluorescence (p-XRF) and some verified by ICP-MS in CCHEN (Chilean Nuclear Energy Commission).[¤]RESULTS[|]Preliminary results show the distribution of metal(loid)s in street dust in the study area. The highest concentrations were 73 mg/kg As (Puchuncaví); 1,830 mg/kg Cu (Puchuncaví); 102 mg/kg Pb (Concón); and 645 mg/kg Zn (Concón), above international guidelines for residential soil (except Pb).[¤]CONCLUSIONS[|]This environmental monitoring (with public air quality measurements) will help advance in identifying the problem and additional mitigation measures to reduce population exposure. Acknowledge: CEDEUS (ANID/FONDAP 1523A0004), and CCHEN.[¤]