Surface water transport of lead at a shooting range.

Lead, one of the earliest metals recognized and used by humans, has a long history of beneficial use to humankind, but has now been recognized as toxic and as posing a widespread threat to humans and wildlife. The adequacy and widespread nature of lead ores (primarily in the forms of the carbonate cerussite, PbCO3, and the sulfide, galena, PbS, combined with its ease of extraction have resulted in the production of more than 300 million metric tons throughout history (Craig, in press). Lead was found to be easily worked, malleable, and slow to corrode relative to iron; hence, it found myriad uses and was the second most used metal (after iron) until being surpassed by copper near the beginning of the 20 th Century. The high density, softness and low cost of lead combined with the ease of melting and molding made it the metal of choice for munitions once firearms were developed. Consequently lead, in a wide variety of forms of pellets and bullets, has been expended in warfare, in hunting, and in recreational shooting world wide for hundreds of years. In the United States, the total amount of lead expended as munitions in hunting and recreational shooting has exceeded 3 million metric tons in the 20th Century and is presently increasing at a rate of approximately 60,000 metric tons per year (U.S.G.S. 1998; Craig in press). Hunting tends to spread the lead over wide areas but generally at low concentrations; in contrast, the use of recreational shooting ranges tends to concentrate the lead into much more restricted, but much more heavily lead-loaded areas. As part of a larger study on the nature of lead corrosion and dispersal, the authors have undertaken detailed studies of several shooting ranges in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Southwestern Virginia. This study reports, to the best of our knowledge, the first report of lead concentrations in surface waters draining from an actively used shooting range.