Under the state's Model Toxics Control Act, the highest legally allowed level is 20 parts per million. Peryea found lead levels as high as 3,200 parts per million, but commonly found levels to be 500 to 600 parts per million. The legal level for lead is 250 parts per million. According to soil analysts, the contamination levels vary greatly in orchards, with the highest levels often found on ground where the chemicals were mixed or along ground holding piping systems for transporting pesticides. High levels were also found in rings around the trees where the pesticide dripped off the limbs.
Scientists remain uncertain.
But local officials say no and offer plenty of anecdotal evidence, contending a person would have to drink the pesticides for years before showing side effects. Farmers who have lived on the orchards all their lives report no health problems. Wenatchee mayor Earl Tilly says he can remember being drenched in lead arsenate as a boy while his father sprayed the orchards, and he doesn't believe it had any ill effect. A study of Wenatchee residents published in 1941 did show an increased lead level in the blood of orchardists at a time when lead arsenate was still being applied. But later health studies, including one performed in the 1980s, reportedly showed lead levels to be normal.