State outreach and financial assistance efforts to promote lead hazard reduction have been effective, but more could be done to increase the programs’ impact and reduce any hardships from the upcoming implementation of the Lead Hazard Mitigation Law.
So says a report released Monday by the Joint Committee on Legislative Services, based on a special review by the Office of the Auditor General of stage agencies’ work in connection with the 1992 Lead Poisoning Prevention Act and the new law slated to go into effect July 1.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
The state House of Representatives voted last month, 59 to 7, to delay implementation by another six months. The measure is now before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, which has not yet scheduled a hearing for it.
Asked whether the new report would affect House Speaker William J. Murphy’s position on the matter – he voted for the delay – spokesman Larry Berman said he didn’t know yet.
“He’s looking forward to discussing it further with the auditor general and members of the committee,” Berman said. “He has not taken a position yet on how long we’re going to delay.”
Asked whether that meant some kind of delay was assured, Berman said that is where the House now stands. “But how far we’re going to go has yet to be determined.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have required each state to develop a strategic plan to eliminate lead poisoning in children by 2010. Rhode Island has set a goal of decreasing the incidence of lead poisoning to less than 5 percent in all local communities without decreasing the availability of safe, affordable housing.
The state Department of Health this month reported that 1,685 Rhode Island children under age 6 were known to be lead-poisoned in 2004, or 5 percent, a 76-percent decline from 20.5 percent in 1995. The rate of new cases has also declined dramatically, to 3.7 percent of all children tested in 2004. But the new-case rates for Providence, Central Falls and Block Island all exceeded 6 percent, with 487 newly poisoned children in Providence alone.
Experts credit the Lead Poisoning Prevention Act with helping to bring poisoning rates down through intensive screening. Health care providers are required to screen all their patients between 9 months and 6 years of age annually; any child with a blood lead level of 10μg/dL is considered lead poisoned, triggering state interventions.
The Lead Hazard Mitigation Act goes one step further, trying to identify dangerous housing before any child is poisoned there. State officials estimate that about 300,000 housing units in Rhode Island were built before 1978, when lead paint was banned, and about 30,000 units are “high-risk” and in urgent need of lead hazard reduction. The new law establishes mitigation standards and a system to educate property owners and to help them finance repairs.
But many in the state consider the Lead Hazard Mitigation Act unduly burdensome and expensive, and its implementation has already been delayed once, by a year.
The auditor general’s report looked at three key areas of the law to determine whether any “unreasonable hardships” exist that should be corrected before implementation. It says the mandated lead hazard awareness seminars should be offered online, it recommends revising the requirement for annual reinspections for lead-safe rental properties, and it urges prompt action regarding the implementation date.
The report also advises spending more money on public service announcements, providing evidence of screening for lead poisoning to owners of rental property, implementing procedures to ensure that inspections of child care facilities are conducted at least annually, establishing a new category for those high-risk properties in the process of being remediated, and providing funding to allow for the hiring of additional personnel.
The latest lead poisoning data from the Department of Health can be downloaded (in PDF form) at www.health.ri.gov/lead.
