Is there something that can be mixed with lead to make it insoluble?

Question

Once upon a time there was a battery plant. The location is now on the edge of a growng town. The earth where the factory was has been dug up and put in a mound, It has been covered with plastic, them with dirt, now another layer of plastic is going over it. First, is this the customary way to treat this kind of soil? Second, they talk of harvesting some sort of gas from the mound!?? Third, is there a a chemical that could have been poured over the contaminated area to make the lead insoluble to avoid the necesstiy of digging it up?

Answer 1

It was not a problem of solubility. The problem was the lead being carried into the water supply and then being consumed by humans. If they are looking for a gas as well, then it is possible that there is also acidic contamination. Hopefully, there is also plastic underneath the mound otherwise the rest of the plastic is useless. If there is only lead, it would have been nice if there was someway to reaccumulate the lead into a large mass which could be transported elsewhere and used for something useful.