Day 40, Mat115H

• EPA proposes tougher downwind pollution rule as Senate votes to block Obama climate plan

• For today: Please give me a one-page description of your plans for your final project (just so that I have something). Then I can begin to make targeted suggestions.

• I've been working on my report(s), and I hope that you are too!

• USAToday levels. 50 values, and here is their distribution:
  

  This gives us a (somewhat biased) picture of the lead situation throughout Newport, although multiple samples were taken from individual properties (and we're not sure how they were selected -- suspected hot? suspected cold?).

• Here are my (nearly final) analyses and results for the Newport lead study:

• Minnesota (one final nail?)

• The data

• If we have the surveys, then we'll check several of the forms where there was some discrepencies, to decide on whether to accept them or not.

  Surveys Forms 23, 24, 43 (W or X); and Form 27, which appears to be from Covington.

• Pascal's triangle is critical for understanding proportions
  

• Preliminary survey results (awaiting synchronization):

   (A1 Provide
   (A2 Safe 
   (A3 Eat/Ex
   (A4 Someone
   (A5 Community 
   (A6 Hope 
   (B Age 
   (C Gender 
   (D Newport
  
  	All:
  (((a d sd sa) (26 4 5 18))
   ((a d sa sd) (32 8 11 2))
   ((a d sa sd) (32 11 8 2))
   ((d a sa sd) (3 21 26 3))
   ((a d sd sa x) (30 15 3 4 1))
   ((a d sa x sd) (24 3 24 1 1))
   ((50 31 16 15) (13 21 14 5))
   ((m f x) (21 28 4))
   ((w e x) (25 21 7)))
  	Westside:
  (((a d sa sd) (16 3 5 1))
   ((a d sa sd) (15 5 4 1))
   ((a d sa sd) (16 6 2 1))
   ((d a sa sd) (1 12 11 1))
   ((a d sd sa) (11 7 3 4))
   ((a d sa sd) (13 2 9 1))
   ((50 31 16 15) (4 11 7 3))
   ((m f x) (11 13 1))
   ((w) (25)))
  	Eastside:
  (((d sd sa a) (1 3 10 7))
   ((d a sd sa) (3 11 1 6))
   ((a d sa sd) (12 3 5 1))
   ((a d sa sd) (5 1 14 1))
   ((d a) (7 14))
   ((d a sa x) (1 8 11 1))
   ((16 31 50 15) (4 10 6 1))
   ((f m x) (12 8 1))
   ((e) (21))
  
  

• The normal distribution: probabilities often come down to
  1. Transforming data to a normal distribution, then
  2. Computing a Z-statistic from a normal distribution:
     

     

  A "Z table"

• A Z for a proportion:
  

This report contains a couple of graphs which show off the data values, the way I would like to for our data. Some quotes from their study:

• Most homes in St. Paul and Minneapolis are old enough to once have had substantial concentrations of lead in exterior and interior paint. The 2000 Census documented that 89% of the homes in Minneapolis and St. Paul were built before 1978, which is the year lead was banned in residential paint. The City of Minneapolis reports that levels of 350 ppm in soil collected near house foundations are typical throughout Minneapolis. Elevated lead is also found in residential areas from past emissions of leaded gasoline, especially near busy neighborhood streets.
• There are sites in Minnesota where it has been possible to attribute lead in the soil to emissions from former lead smelters. However, in this case it would be difficult, if not impossible to attribute lead concentrations in those two residential neighborhoods to the former smelters in the USA Today story. The heterogeneity of the lead soil sampling results reported in the neighborhoods surrounding the former smelter sites suggests that the lead is likely not due to area-wide contamination from air emissions from a former smelter stack. Determining the source of lead in soil may be possible through expensive lead isotope laboratory analyses, but such a project would take time, may not produce definitive results, and would not lead to different public health conclusions and recommendations.

• Keener, et al. have looked at lead in Newport, and done their own sampling.
• Eventually I will share this presentation that I gave to math majors at Murray State University, many years ago. Although it was given to math majors, the major ideas can be understood by anyone. Hence we will will gloss over some of the specifics, without sacrificing the big ideas.

But there are other things to talk about from that study.

It motivated another class in the Project Hope initiative, of which Emily Keener was a member to write the following report. Emily Keener was kind enough to tip me off to the existence of the Superfund report.

One of the students on this project went on to write the Enquirer article which just came out.

We're using the KY EPA lead data to

1. map the yard around the former smelter, and determine a "lead load" in the immediate vicinity of the smelter, and to
2. get a "soil lead profile" -- since we have multiple lead levels at each site. So let's talk about this one today. It will help us to get an answer to the previous problem.

   In the end, we get results that look like these.