Status of Some Soil Trace Elements and Their Potential Human Health Risks Around a Coal Beneficiation Plant

The entire coal beneficiation process, starting from unloading the raw coal to the loading of processed coal, liberates particulate matter, which would ultimately settle on the soil at varying distances. This is likely to affect soil quality and possibly the health of the inhabitants. Soil samples collected from the sites of two coal beneficiation plants (CBPs), located in Dhanbad, India, and a control (CNT) site were analyzed for some trace elements like Cr, V, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Rb, Zr, Ba, Th, and U. The results showed that the CBP soils were enriched in Cr and Ni. In the absence of other sources of industrial pollutants, the enrichment of Cr and Ni is attributed to their input from the CBPs. However, the accumulation of Cr and Ni did not appear to reach health-risk levels, as the calculated lifetime human intake levels through different exposure pathways from the soil are within the USEPA's reference dose (RfD). Multivariate analyses like principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis showed that the association between the trace elements in CBP soils is distinctly different than the CNT, thereby suggesting a different origin of some of the trace elements in CBP soils.