Concentrations of Heavy Metals in Farmland Soils from selected Oil Bearing Communities in Gokana, Rivers State, Nigeria

Human intervention into the natural environment in order to better humanity has both negative Local Government Area of the Rivers State. The communities where the samples were collected were Yeghe, Bodo, B-Dere and K-Dere. The samples were subjected to laboratory treatment and and positive components. Soil samples were collected from selected farmlands from Gokana finally analyzed for heavy metals concentrations in both soil and the cassava parts. The result showed that the mean concentrations of the heavy metals in the soil from the communities were; 1.501±0.142, 2.685±0.382, 4.185±0.740, 4.021±0.540, 174.914±28.497 and 3.809±0.596 mg/Kg for cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), chromium (Cr) copper (Cu), iron (Fe) and nickel (Ni) respectively. The order of concentrations of the heavy metals in the soil was, Fe > Cr > Cu > Ni >Pb> Cd. Analysis of the pollution levels of the soils from the farmlands using some pollution indices indicated that contamination factor analysis showed that the soils were all severely polluted with Cd, but were uncontaminated with all the other metals. Pollution index revealed that all the soils fall within the range of slight contamination, contamination degree and modified contamination degree assessment indicated that the soils were uncontaminated with the metals.