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Democracy Dies in Darkness
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EnvironmentClimateWeatherClimate SolutionsAnimalsClimate LabGreen Living
EnvironmentClimateWeatherClimate SolutionsAnimalsClimate LabGreen Living


LEAD PAINT UPENDED THIS BOY’S LIFE. NOW THE EPA IS TRYING TO ELIMINATE THE
THREAT.


THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY IS ABOUT TO ISSUE STRICT LIMITS ON LEAD
DUST, WHICH POSES A THREAT TO MILLIONS OF CHILDREN ACROSS THE UNITED STATES.

12 min
239

Jade Shirey carries her son, Benny, 4, at their school in Jamestown, N.Y., on
Sept. 18. After getting lead poisoning from paint on the stairs and doorframes
of their home, Ben was diagnosed with autism and became nonverbal.
By Amudalat Ajasa
and 
Carolyn Van Houten
October 19, 2024 at 6:30 a.m. EDT

JAMESTOWN, N.Y. — The home Jade Shirey bought over a decade ago was a bargain
and exactly what she needed for her growing family. But she knew it needed a
some touch-ups, and after a few years, she turned her attention to the chipping,
dark-red-painted wood under the carpet. She started sanding the painted floors,
before staining the wood.



She had been remodeling the stairs for two months when she took her son, Benny,
to his 1-year-old checkup. A finger prick showed he tested positive for lead
levels four times higher than the national standard at the time. The lead paint
hidden beneath the floorboards had turned into clouds of dust, poisoning him.




Nearly a half century after the federal government banned lead-based paints in
homes across the country, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to finalize
tighter lead dust standards within days in an effort to eliminate toxic paint in
homes built before 1978, according to agency officials. But even in some of the
communities whose children face the highest risk for lead exposure, officials
worry whether they can accomplish that goal.

The EPA estimates that more than a third of all housing units in the country —
31 million — still contain lead-based paint that was applied before the ban, and
3.8 million of them have one or more children under the age of 6 living there.

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The proposed rule EPA issued in July 2023 would declare any amount of lead dust
detected on homes’ floors and windowsills hazardous. It also sets an aggressive
new standard for what is considered clean after removing lead paint, slashing
allowable levels to the lowest readings that can be reliably detected by testing
labs.

It does not mandate new inspections, but when indications of lead exposure
emerge — during a child’s checkup, or after a lead paint inspection associated
with the sale of a home, for example — state and local rules for lead removal
will have to meet the proposed cleaning standards. Public housing authorities
already require inspection and removal of lead paint hazards in homes undergoing
remodeling, and HUD-funded homes may also require lead removal.

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The EPA estimates its proposed rule would prevent between 250,000 and 500,000
children under the age of 6 from being exposed to lead each year. Children are
most vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can cause developmental delays,
difficulty learning, behavioral problems and hyperactivity. Even low-level
exposure can cause lifelong effects on children, including cognitive and nervous
system damage, and hearing and speech challenges.

Most of the lead a person is exposed to over time accumulates in the body, where
it’s released very slowly. It can linger in the body, hiding in places meant to
store calcium, like our bones.

“Simply put,” Michal Freedhoff, the EPA’s assistant administrator for the office
of chemical safety and pollution prevention, said when the rule was proposed in
July 2023, “exposure to lead can reduce the promise and potential of a young
life in some cases, and in other cases, it can profoundly damage them forever.”

But the regulation’s opponents say eliminating all lead paint would raise the
cost of housing, and even its supporters worry about how it will play out in
practice. Many local and state agencies lack the staff and funding to identify
where lead poisoning persists, and many families only discover they have
unwittingly exposed their children to lead after a doctor’s visit.



David Rosner, a professor of sociomedical sciences and history at Columbia
University, said that previous rules limiting lead levels in blood — but not
zeroing it out — were only “small victories.”

“This is the first time the EPA has acknowledged that no level of lead is safe
and that there’s no minimum level of exposure that’s acceptable,” he said,
calling it “an extraordinary victory.”

But Rosner added that getting local officials to inspect homes after learning
about high lead levels and ensuring landlords remove lead paint “is no small
operation.”

Nicole Upano, assistant vice president of housing policy and regulatory affairs
for the National Apartment Association, said that while the landlords’ group
supports the goal of reducing childhood lead poisoning, the cost of
“overregulation” could make housing even more scarce.

The rule would discourage landlords for participating in federally assisted
housing programs, she added, given its requirement to reduce lead dust to
practically zero.

“Having these requirements would disproportionately impact the naturally
affordable housing available to families with children,” Upano said. “This new
rule would essentially say that any particles of dust would be a hazard, and
that’s really challenging.”

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Experts say it only takes a small amount of lead dust — the size of one sugar
packet — to contaminate an entire football field. Opening a window or door lined
with lead paint can create lead dust and chips as pieces of wood grind together.
Small children face a particular risk from the floor and around windowsills,
since they tend to explore the world by putting their hands and objects in their
mouths.



Jamestown, where Shirey bought her home in 2012, is a small city surrounded by
rural communities in the western corner of the state, in Chautauqua County.
There, 90 percent of the homes were built before 1978 — and so are likely to
have lead underneath layers of newer coats of paint.

Anna Powell, Chautauqua County’s lead program director, believes that stricter
guidelines will be “a big lift” and could be “tough to attain” but not
impossible to achieve.

“We are oddly excited about it because we understand that the benefits of it
long term are going to really make a difference in the public health outcomes
for children in this county and throughout New York State,” Powell said. The
county recently received nearly $6 million from an HUD program aimed at
preventing childhood lead poisoning, to pay for contractors to remove lead in
private homes.

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Lisa Schmidtfrerick-Miller, a Chautauqua County health department contractor who
promotes community awareness about lead poisoning prevention, said that stronger
national standards will help protect children. But the fact that that rule does
not require government officials to proactively test for lead dust, she said,
could make it harder to eradicate.

The CDC estimates that up to 500,000 children in the United States have blood
lead levels at or above 3.5 micrograms per deciliter — a number that the CDC
marks as a trigger for medical and public health intervention — largely from
exposure to peeling paint and contaminated water, soil, food and toys. This
exposure has dropped dramatically since 1976, thanks to federal bans on lead in
gasoline, paint and in pipes supplying water to U.S. homes.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that between 1976 and
1980, 99.8 percent of surveyed children between 1 and 5 years old had blood lead
levels of 5 micrograms per deciliter or more. By 2016, the number dropped to a
little more than 1 percent.

“It often feels like no one thinks lead poisoning is really a problem until
their own child is poisoned, despite our ongoing efforts to educate our
community about the risks and prevalence,” Schmidtfrerick-Miller said.



Chautauqua County is home to nearly 125,000 residents, according to U.S. Census
Bureau data, about 6,700 of which are children under the age of 5. Of New York’s
62 counties minus New York City, according to the state’s health department,
Chautauqua County has the second-highest rate of children testing at nearly
triple the federal threshold.

“It feels like it’s been a systemic failure,” Schmidtfrerick-Miller said. “We’ve
just failed these children and these families.”

But Erin Clary, a spokeswoman for the state health department, said in an email
that the level of exposure can be inflated in areas with low rates of lead
testing, and it makes more sense to look at a community’s total number of
poisoned children.

Officials from Jamestown said that more testing would probably find higher rates
of childhood lead poisoning. In many places, children are typically only checked
for blood lead levels at their annual one- and two-year checkups.

Chautauqua County officials, including Powell, support testing children each
year through their 6-year-old checkup. “We need to do better,” she said.

But for children like Benny, the damage can’t be undone. When Shirey first
learned in 2020 that her son had lead poisoning, Benny’s lead levels stood at 22
micrograms per deciliter.

After he was initially poisoned, Shirey contacted her local health department to
inspect her home for lead. They identified all the areas with lead paint, but
since none of them were peeling, she assumed Benny wouldn’t continue to be
exposed if she stopped working on the stairs.



Over the course of a year, he went from an excitable baby who could sing
“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to a nonverbal 2-year-old who struggled to
follow simple instructions. The dreams Shirey had for her son have dwindled, and
she wonders what her son would be like had he not been poisoned.

“This should have all been done a very long time ago,” Shirey said, adding that
she believes the new ban will reduce lead exposure for other children, even if
it won’t help her own.

While Shirey tested her son multiple times, she said the doctors did not give
her specific guidance on how to reduce his exposure to the harmful toxin. His
lead levels fell to 9 micrograms per deciliter at age 2, medical records show,
and to 6.2 at 2½. She and her best friend researched which foods absorb lead and
which would purge it, she recalled.

When Benny was almost 3, Shirey qualified for HUD assistance to remove lead from
parts of her home. The county painted over the chipping paint with lead barrier
paint, added layers of wood over the door frames and replaced a couple window
frames.

But the lead exposure did not stop. As winter approached in 2022 and Shirey
turned on the heat, she said that plumes of dust blew from the vents into the
air. By December, days after Benny’s third birthday, his levels shot back up to
21, though it is unclear exactly why. Shirey said she has contacted the local
health department and was promised a professional cleaning, but it has not
happened. Her son’s lead levels now stand at 4.4 micrograms per deciliter, above
the CDC’s recommended threshold.



Shirey still has the notes app she used to track words Benny knew how to say.
She hasn’t updated it in almost two years. Shirey gets emotional when she
watches old videos of her son talking and singing. Benny’s grandpa, Vernon
Shirey, teased that it used to drive him mad the amount of times Benny would say
“papa.” Now he prays to hear it.

Benny meets with a speech therapist twice a week and is in a special-education
class. But while other children are able to count to 10 and sing their ABCs by
the end of prekindergarten, Benny is only able to match similar pictures.

Benny is prone to explosive meltdowns and other behavioral issues, and the
severity of his delays have become clearer as his 2-year-old brother, Teddy,
starts to dress himself and form complete sentences.

His blue tablet, on which he frequently plays aquatic videos, and stuffed orca
toy are some of the few things that keep him calm. His short attention span has
made learning basic skills, like potty training, a challenge. Benny can’t play
in the sandbox or color with his brother without strict supervision because
Shirey worries he’ll eat the sand or crayons — a condition known as pica.

“My kid is 4½ years old, and I don’t even know what his voice sounds like,” she
said.

Remnants of lead paint still remain throughout Shirey’s home, under layers of
new paint and wood. While holding Teddy in her arms, she touched the pillar that
overlooks her backyard. Chunks of white, chipping paint crumbled into her hands.
More lead paint.

As Shirey walks up the stairs that poisoned her son, with blue marker scribbles
from Benny on the sage walls beside it, she is sometimes consumed with guilt
from her son’s irreversible brain damage.

“As a parent, sometimes it’s very hard for me because I feel like it’s my
fault,” Shirey said. She frequently calls her parents crying, blaming herself.

Just two-and-a-half months before Benny’s fifth birthday, as Shirey tucked him
under his Thomas the Train blanket, she said, “I love you.” Through broken
syllables, he repeated, “I. Love. You.” Shirey stood in disbelief. It was the
first time he had ever said it.

She tried to get him to say it again. He did not.


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