For more than 250 years, miners in the “Old Lead Belt” wrenched copious amounts of valuable but potentially dangerous ore from the earth beneath Southeast Missouri. Their work left huge deposits of contaminated tailings—the sandy refuse from the mining process—that have since made their way into the soils and streams of the Lead Belt and beyond. Health officials say locating these contaminated areas is key to minimizing unhealthy human exposure. That task is becoming easier and cheaper thanks to an innovative aerial survey technique employed by the MU-based Missouri Resource Assessment Partnership, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the Missouri Wing of the Civil Air Patrol.

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