Downloaded By: [NEICON Consortium] At: 08:08 12 May 2007 Copyright © 1999, CRC Press LLC — Files may be downloaded for personal use only. Reproduction of this material without the consent of the publisher is prohibited. 527 Journal of Soil Contamination, 8(5):527–540 (1999) Risk Analysis of a Farm Area Near a Lead- and Cadmium-Contaminated Industrial Site Koldo Cambra, 1 Teresa Martínez, 1 Arantzazu Urzelai, 2 and Eva Alonso 1 1 Department of Public Health Basque Government, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain; 2 IHOBE, S.A. Department of Environment, Basque Government, Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain KEY WORDS: lead, cadmium, soil pollution, risk analysis, environmental clean-up. The Asua Valley is an area on the outskirts of Bilbao where industry and small farms still coexist despite decades of serious environmental pollution. The present study was carried out to estimate the risk to which the residents of the area are exposed as a result of soil/dust ingestion and consump- tion of locally grown fresh produce, and, on the basis of this data, to delimit the areas that might require environmental clean-up. The relation between lead and cadmium content in soil and plant samples was as- sessed by multiple linear regression. The level of soil lead content for proposing in- tervention was determined by assessing the exposure of young children due to soil ingestion, assuming a “central-estimate” ingestion rate of 110 mg/day. Vegetable sampling was stratified according to the level of cadmium in the soil. The interven- tion content of cadmium was established as the midpoint of the soil sampling stra- tum previous to the one registering a veg- etable consumption hazard quotient of 1; in this interval the intake reached 57% of the TDI.