Lead Based Paint

Anne Arundel and Howard counties will become owners of a 20-acre parcel of Tipton Army Airfield at Fort Meade on Oct. 1 -- about two years ahead of schedule.Yesterday, officials from Fort Meade, the Army Environmental Center and the federal Environmental Protection Agency met to hammer out details of the early transfer and cleanup of pollutants and unexploded shells on the site.A 41,860-square-foot aircraft hangar, helicopter pad and parking lot are on the site.The hangar was built in 1974 and used to store solvent and lubricants.

After a months-long delay, city and state officials said yesterday they are poised to attack Baltimore's epidemic of childhood lead poisoning by cleaning more than 500 homes riddled with the toxic substance in the next year. The joint lead-poisoning campaign, promised in January by Gov. Parris N. Glendening and Mayor Martin O'Malley, has been stalled for several months as legislators blocked release of $5 million in state funds for the effort until they were convinced city and state officials could work together effectively.

AN EPIDEMIC of lead poisoning courses through Baltimore's inner city, but testing shows children are exposed and poisoned in almost every Maryland county. The cases in rural and suburban areas don't climb into the thousands as they do in Baltimore, but no one in Carroll County or Anne Arundel, Howard or Harford should be consoled to learn that only a few of their were exposed and that fewer had lead levels deemed dangerous. In Montgomery County, the state's most affluent, 8,044 children were tested in 1998 under the Medicaid program.

WASHINGTON -- When Baltimore County steel painter Roy Gentry started blasting encrusted paint from the eaves of Washington's Old Executive Office Building last summer, he didn't know that a few weeks on the job would send him writhing in agony to a hospital and poison his 2-year-old son.Lyndon Gross, a once-active 25-year-old ironworker from Calvert County, uses a crutch now for his weakened legs and can barely flex his hands after working six months in...

Baltimore: Central Booking Suspect missing from intake center An armed-robbery suspect escaped yesterday from the Central Booking and Intake Center, officials said. Troy Aaron Gross, 42, of Gwynn Oak was arrested Thursday on armed robbery and other charges, said Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Vernarelli said Gross was taken to the facility Friday morning. He said correctional officers discovered that Gross, who was being held without bail, was missing yesterday.

The General Assembly gave final approval yesterday to a controversial bill restricting tenants' rights to withhold rent when lead-paint endangers their children's health. Children's advocates have said they would urge Gov. Parris N. Glendening to veto the measure.By a 37-10 vote, the Senate decided to alter a 1976 law under which tenants can pay rent into a District Court escrow account until landlords remove lead-based paint. The House earlier approved the same measure, which had been sought by landlords from throughout Maryland.

Long before the state's environmental secretary pushed for stronger enforcement of the federal Lead Containment Control Act earlier this month, Carroll County schools have engaged in detection and removal of the dangerous substance."

WASHINGTON - The Maryland Court of Appeals' harsh criticism of the Kennedy Krieger Institute's lead poisoning research has created the impression that researchers sacrificed children's health for the good of science. The outrage expressed in news reports is rooted in the false premise that this study placed children in harm's way. The reality is that this research made homes safer, not only for the children in Baltimore but for hundreds of thousands of others across the nation. Children do not live in lead-burdened houses because researchers want to "experiment" on them but because so much of our housing is contaminated by lead.

In a legislative session marked by discord over taxes and gambling, lawmakers came together to pass three major bills aimed at boosting Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts. They failed to agree, however, on other environmental priorities - a bill to subsidize building wind turbines off Ocean City, and a measure requiring natural gas companies to pay for studying the impacts of drilling for energy in western Maryland. The General Assembly approved two bay billls that were priorities of the O'Malley administration bills, one doubling the 'flush fee' to pay for upgrading sewage treatment plants and another limiting rural development on septic systems.  A third late-moving bill pushed by environmentalists would require Baltimore city and nine suburban counties to levy local fees to pay for curbing polluted runoff from their streets and parking lots.

WASHINGTON -- Mayor Martin O'Malley met yesterday with federal lawmakers who represent Baltimore, pressing them for $35 million to improve the quality of life in the city. At lunch in the Capitol, Sens. Paul S. Sarbanes and Barbara A. Mikulski, both Democrats and Baltimore residents, praised O'Malley for his new blueprint for governing the city. But they also warned him against expecting everything he asked for, according to several people who observed the discussion. Reps. Benjamin L. Cardin, Elijah E. Cummings and Wayne T. Gilchrest, whose districts include portions of Baltimore, also attended the luncheon.