Last fall, Haynes’ team conducted a pilot study that evaluated about 140 residents from Marietta and nearby communities for potentially dangerous exposures to manganese, chromium and lead. Results for individual participants have been distributed by mail.

Here's what the study revealed about the group as a whole:

“The average blood manganese values in our study was 9.2 micrograms per liter. In hair manganese averaged 5.5 micrograms per gram,” Haynes said.

Though it's not known exactly how to gage manganese in hair, Haynes said these readings do indicate elevated exposure in the blood of area residents.

“In terms of manganese, the ATSDR gives a typical range of what to expect in blood, not hair, hair hasn't been studied as much. But, for blood they say a typical range would be 4 to 14, and ours was 9.2,” Haynes said.

The test also looked for lead exposure, but that didn't seem to be excessive.

“Blood lead was 1.75 micrograms per deciliter. For lead that's right in the national norms for lead exposure in an adult population,” Haynes said.

Haynes said it's the manganese that's the greatest concern because of health impacts observed in other, less contaminated populations.

“I'll refer back to the study in southeast Quebec,” Haynes said. “They looked at the community members who had been exposed previously to this ferroalloy plant. And, their blood value was somewhere in the sevens. And, they did find effects. Here our value seems to be higher than that. So I'm really looking forward to doing a larger study.”

She says a larger study will help to determine how widespread the contamination is and what possible health effects may be seen.