I feel like I'm too stupid to talk to all of you, but here goes. I understand the environmental impacts of removing large amounts of clay and placing it elsewhere, and also the bit about pollutants leaching into rivers and creeks, thus contaminating clay soil beds. My question is, how dangerous is it for ones health to harvest clay for pottery from general areas, say from a creek in a small town that has only 100 years of industrial and mining operations that ran at least 100 miles north of said creek bed.(I'm not too sure where the creek ultimately flows from). Is there a way to tell contaminants by color or smell? Also is a small amount of silt harvested with the clay okay? Also can harvested clay from pottery harbour microbes and parasites, ( that sort if thing).
Thanks.
