Lead Based Paint

Antonio Fulgham can barely read or write. The 21-year-old from West Baltimore has been deemed "mentally retarded," with bleak job prospects. He blames his plight on lead poisoning he suffered as a toddler while growing up amid flaking paint in two Baltimore public housing units. Last fall a city jury agreed, and ordered the Housing Authority of Baltimore City to pay him damages that amount to $1.27 million. Although nothing can undo his brain damage, Fulgham says the money will mean "a better change in my life.

Lead poisoning, once widespread, appears on the way to becoming a rarity among children living in old rental housing in Baltimore and the rest of Maryland. But the problem is growing among youngsters who live in owner-occupied and newer rental homes, and that is prompting state officials to look for new ways to fight the longtime health scourge. State environmental officials reported Tuesday that the number of Maryland children found last year with harmful levels of lead in their blood declined to 531, down by 22 from the year before and less than 0.5 percent of all youngsters tested.

A Baltimore painting contractor was given probation before judgment in city Circuit Court today in the first criminal prosecution of anyone for improperly removing hazardous lead-based paint from a home.Judge Elsbeth L. Bothe ordered Mark A. Crosby Inc. to perform $2,000 worth of free painting as community service for violating state lead paint abatement regulations when the contracting firm repainted a Cedarcroft home in the summer of 1990.But Bothe rejected arguments by the prosecutor that the court should convict the firm to "send a signal" that the state is serious about enforcing rules requiring safe removal or covering over of lead-based paint.

I was appalled to learn recently how the three young children of my neighbors on Henrietta Street in Federal Hill were put at risk of lead poisoning. The law allows only contractors who are certified to remove lead-based paint. In this renovation, a certified contractor won a contract for the paint removal and then scooted around the EPA requirement by subcontracting the work. The subcontractor was not certified, and indeed failed to take the required precautions. Lead-based paint dust and debris were spread over the property and neighboring properties.

Young children risk lead poisoning in about 3.8 million U.S. homes that contain peeling lead-based paint or high levels of hazardous lead-paint dust, according to a new national survey.In a report prepared for Congress, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp gives the highest estimate yet of the number of American homes contaminated by lead-based paint, and he outlines a national plan to fight lead poisoning in privately owned housing.The plan, requested by Congress three years ago, proposes offering financial assistance to lower-income families with children living in homes where lead-based paint is a health hazard.

I was appalled to learn recently how the three young children of my neighbors on Henrietta Street in Federal Hill were put at risk of lead poisoning. The law allows only contractors who are certified to remove lead-based paint. In this renovation, a certified contractor won a contract for the paint removal and then scooted around the EPA requirement by subcontracting the work. The subcontractor was not certified, and indeed failed to take the required precautions. Lead-based paint dust and debris were spread over the property and neighboring properties.

WASHINGTON -- Low-income homeowners and child-care centers would be eligible for money to remove lead-based paint, the prime cause of lead poisoning, under legislation introduced yesterday by Representative Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md.-3rd.Lead poisoning is considered one of the nation's major health risks for children, particularly in older cities like Baltimore, where the health department recently relaxed requirements for removing lead-paint from rental properties to encourage more landlords to address the problem.

In a bid to get more property owners to obey cleanup orders, Baltimore health officials are easing the requirements for removing hazardous lead paint from properties where children have been poisoned.Seeking to break a political deadlock between the city's landlords and public health advocates, officials have decided to try a one-year experiment in which property owners will not be required, as they are now, to remove or cover all lead-based paint found in their properties.The new guidelines, to take effect this fall, could significantly lower the $14,000 average cost of totally "de-leading" a three-bedroom rowhouse, which has been a major stumbling block to efforts to prevent lead poisoning.

Americans would help finance the towering costs of finding and removing hazardous lead paint from older homes in Baltimore and elsewhere around the country by paying about $15 more for their car batteries, under legislation being introduced in Congress today.Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., said the bill he drafted would raise $1 billion a year for lead-paint abatement by levying an excise tax on continuing uses of lead."This legislation provides the only real cure for lead poisoning -- prevention," Cardin said in a statement.

An environmental testing company has found that the lead paint at several Annapolis public housing units "does not pose a health hazard to residents and occupants," despite higher-than-normal amounts of the toxic substance detected in the buildings last fall. "The lead-based paint is buried under layers of newer, non-lead paint" and "the surfaces of the lead-based paint are intact and are not peeling loose," Jennifer W. Matherly, a project engineer for Environmental Testing Inc. in Middletown, Del., wrote in a recent letter.

The dust was thick enough that Sally Dworak-Fisher could trace letters in it with her finger. She feared that particles from rehab work next door were drifting into her Federal Hill home and coating many surfaces — even under the bathroom sink. But when she and other neighbors of the property contacted federal, state and local authorities about concerns that dust at the Henrietta Street house might contain toxic lead, everyone said some other agency was responsible. The residents' complaints, made earlier this month, demonstrate a breakdown at every level of government in the enforcement of laws and regulations meant to protect the public from the hazards of lead-based paint.

Antonio Fulgham can barely read or write. The 21-year-old from West Baltimore has been deemed "mentally retarded," with bleak job prospects. He blames his plight on lead poisoning he suffered as a toddler while growing up amid flaking paint in two Baltimore public housing units. Last fall a city jury agreed, and ordered the Housing Authority of Baltimore City to pay him damages that amount to $1.27 million. Although nothing can undo his brain damage, Fulgham says the money will mean "a better change in my life.

Though incidences of lead poisoning have declined greatly among children in Baltimore and Maryland in the past two decades, they have not decreased as readily among youngsters who live in homes not covered by the state's lead paint law. More than half the Maryland youngsters found last year with elevated levels of lead in their blood lived in owner-occupied homes or rental units built since 1950, according to a new report by the state Department of...

Starting today, anyone renovating an older home across the country will have to hire a contractor certified to handle lead-based paint under a new federal rule that aims to reduce the number of children poisoned by the toxic metal. The rule affects all homes built before 1978, when lead was banned in paint. The number of children harmed by lead has dropped significantly since then, mainly because it has been banned in consumer products. But the Environmental Protection Agency, which imposed the rule, said a million children a year still suffer effects.

Facing a series of lawsuits over lead paint exposure, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City is trying a novel approach for its defense: Don't bother suing us, because we can't afford to pay. The request for relief - which the plaintiffs' attorney called unprecedented - asks a city judge to rule that the authority "has no funds, and therefore no ability to pay any judgments entered against it in the above-referenced civil actions." To back up their petition, lawyers noted a list of financial woes for the authority - a projected drop of $4 million in federal funding this year, recent layoffs to balance its budget and the dissolution of its police force in 2004.

An environmental testing company has found that the lead paint at several Annapolis public housing units "does not pose a health hazard to residents and occupants," despite higher-than-normal amounts of the toxic substance detected in the buildings last fall. "The lead-based paint is buried under layers of newer, non-lead paint" and "the surfaces of the lead-based paint are intact and are not peeling loose," Jennifer W. Matherly, a project engineer for Environmental Testing Inc. in Middletown, Del., wrote in a recent letter.

The dust was thick enough that Sally Dworak-Fisher could trace letters in it with her finger. She feared that particles from rehab work next door were drifting into her Federal Hill home and coating many surfaces — even under the bathroom sink. But when she and other neighbors of the property contacted federal, state and local authorities about concerns that dust at the Henrietta Street house might contain toxic lead, everyone said some other agency was responsible. The residents' complaints, made earlier this month, demonstrate a breakdown at every level of government in the enforcement of laws and regulations meant to protect the public from the hazards of lead-based paint.

NEW ORLEANS - NAACP President Kweisi Mfume urged sanctions yesterday against the paint industry and states and cities that don't follow federal regulations to cut exposure to lead paint. "We call today on this president and on this Congress to take federal action by withholding dollars to states that are not complying [with] basic requirements of the Medicaid bill and Medicaid funding that they get," Mfume said. "We believe that funding ought to end." He said he and President Bush need to work together on lead paint and other racially sensitive issues.

Two Baltimore lawmakers are backing legislation that would make it easier for victims of lead poisoning to sue manufacturers of lead-based paint for damages. The bill -- which would hold paint manufacturers responsible for harming thousands of Maryland children based on how much lead-based paint they sold in the state -- would help Baltimore attorney Peter G. Angelos pursue two lawsuits he has filed against the pigment industry. Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg said yesterday that he is drafting a bill that would allow "market-share liability" claims against lead-paint manufacturers in Maryland courts.