“Nearly 30 years after a bad address led to a toxic Port Richmond industrial site being overlooked for decades, the federal Environmental Protection Agency this week will begin tests to see how much lead contamination from the old Jewett White Lead plant on Richmond Terrace has seeped into the neighborhood”
A school gymnasium full of residents were told that an inspector had once come looking for a site called “Shore Road”, and not realizing the name had been changed to “Richmond Terrace”, abandoned the search for the reported lead hazard site. It reads a bit like a movie script with Julia Roberts about to arrive on the scene any moment.
There have been early reports that the surface soil at the site is 30 x safe limits. However, as Cerazy and Cottingham point out in their newly released book, LEAD BABIES, there is no such thing a “safe level” when it comes to lead. “It is so toxic to a developing brain – either through a child’s direct contact with lead, or in-utero exposure where a mother’s life-long accumulation of lead stored in her bones head straight for baby, that even trace amounts cause permanent damage.”
Residents are being advised to wash their homegrown vegetables well. But better advice would be to get backyard soil tested to see if it is safe to allow children and pets yard access. Testing the water, instead of using it to wash the vegetables, seems like a more logical response.
As random soil testing throughout the adjacent neighborhood gets underway, the broader region is also a concern. A nearby park will need to be re-landscaped before it is deemed safe for children.
Residents and homeowners are justifiably angry that this cleanup has been left for decades. The question is, how much lead has accumulated in the bones and brain tissues of residents in the years that have passed? Of course the children’s safety is of paramount concern, but as Cerazy and Cottingham make clear in their book, “lead poisoning” at age 10 is a completely different issue than being born with a severe learning disability, ADHD or with a mental handicap because your mother’s lead accumulations crossed the placenta and permanently damaged your brain. Given the studies that are emerging one after another, showing that bone lead and delinquent or criminal behavior are causally linked, there needs to be as much focus on getting the lead out of the systems of the teenagers and young adults, as there does protective measures for children (and pets).
LEAD BABIES
Breaking the cycle of learning disabilities, declining IQ, ADHD, behavior problems, and autism
www.nomoreleadbabies.com
Authors: Joanna Cerazy M.Ed. and Sandra Cottingham Ph.D
