The distribution of metals in soils and pore water at three U.S. military training facilities.

Small arms firing ranges at military training facilities can have enormous heavy metal burdens (percent level) in soils. Currently there are few published works that quantify the metal content of soils and waters at military installations or speculate on the potential for migration of these contaminants into groundwater. This article documents metals in soils and waters at nine small arms training ranges at three military installations in the U.S. Soil samples were collected from the surface and shallow subsurface. The results demonstrated that lead, antimony, copper, and zinc were the principal contaminants of interest and mapping a site's lead and copper surface distributions would adequately define the extent of impacted soil. Lower metal concentrations at three of the ranges reflected previous remediation by means of physical separation and mechanical removal of metallic fragments followed by fixation treatment with MaectiteTM. Except for the treated ranges where mixing had occurred, subsurface soil s...