Forum covers lead paint hazards

BANGOR – Advocates of improving the health of Maine children met in Bangor Tuesday to announce the formation of a new fund dedicated to eradicating lead paint poisoning.

Now that the $10,500 Maine Lead Safe Kids Fund exists, according to the Coalition for Environmentally Safe Communities, it’s time for businesses, foundations and individuals to dig deep to help eliminate the toxic contamination and complex set of health, educational and social problems it causes.

It’s a pittance, according to Susan Thornfelt, head of the Portland-based nonprofit Maine Lead Action Project. “But we’re going to have to make it work,” she said. “We’re going to have to work together to find solutions to this problem.”

The free public forum at Bangor’s City Hall drew about 80 participants and presenters from around the state, including several parents of lead-poisoned children. Also present were public health officials, community service providers, legislators, nursing students, educators, landlords, tenants, attorneys and others. About 30 pre-kindergarten youngsters attended briefly as well, before parading down to the Maine Discovery Museum for a morning of activities.

Besides the pricey problem of funding lead cleanup in Maine homes, Thornfelt said the state’s official Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Project has some “holes” in it – holes that allow too many children to go untested, too many landlords to rent their contaminated properties to young families and too many parents to expose their children to the dangerous toxin unwittingly.

A case in point, young mother Denise Wilson described how her two children were lead poisoned after she moved back to Maine from the West Coast, despite her basic awareness of the problem and a series of encounters that failed to set off her maternal alarms.

“It was my dream to move home, buy a big old house and fix it up and raise my kids here,” she said. When she shared that dream with her California midwife, the health practitioner failed to alert her to the danger of lead paint. When she and her husband purchased the “perfect” house they found in Bangor, they signed a statement acknowledging the possibility there was lead paint, but the realtor glossed over the fine-print clause. When she purchased renovation supplies, including sandpaper, paints and solvents, no one at the hardware store asked if she was observing lead-safe precautions. And none of the several professional contractors who came to work on the house took seriously her casual queries about the danger of exposing her children to lead dust.

“They all reassured me, and I wanted to believe them” she said. “I wanted to be reassured.” As it turned out, her house was “totally infested” with lead. Her children were heavily exposed and may suffer lifelong consequences ranging from behavioral problems and learning disabilities to retardation and a range of medical problems. Wilson emphasized that a primary goal of the drive to end lead paint poisoning should be to step up education and awareness among the general population, as well as assisting with the costs of minimizing exposure.

Gov. John Baldacci, who opened the meeting, pledged his support to creating a “stable, independent funding base” to help pay for the variety of interventions needed to effectively combat lead paint poisoning. Specifically, Baldacci said he would work with advocates to present to state lawmakers during the upcoming legislative session a bond package containing funds earmarked for lead paint abatement. A similar bond package was voted down during the last session, the governor noted.

Maine lost out earlier this month on the third-time renewal of a federal grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, money that since 1998 has been used to fund the expensive and hazardous process of making Maine homes safe for children. Roger Bondeson, who administers the lead abatement program for the Maine State Housing Authority, said at Tuesday’s event that almost $6 million in state and federal funds has been spent since 1998 to eliminate or minimize lead contamination in Maine homes.

Bondeson said there is growing competition among states and municipalities for the HUD funding as awareness of the severity of the issue grows. As Maine’s housing stock, the 13th oldest in the country, deteriorates ever more rapidly, he said, “the stakes have never been higher.”

The Coalition for Environmentally Safe Communities, a national environmental health advocacy organization, has been awarded $1 million in HUD funding, according to executive director Janet Phoenix. The organization will use the money to establish a number of community-level funds to support lead poisoning issues, she said.