Executive Summary

“Getting the Lead Out: The Childhood Lead Poisoning Crisis in New Jersey”

New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate

April 29, 2008

A year-long investigation by the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate (DPA) has uncovered significant problems in the systems designed to protect New Jersey children from lead poisoning.

• Read Our Lead Report: Getting the Lead Out: The Childhood Lead Poisoning Crisis in New Jersey
• Read Ronald K. Chen's Remarks on the Governor's Executive Order to Better Protect Children from Lead Poisoning 
• View Governor's Executive Order No. 100

DPA conducted a field investigation late last year in five of the New Jersey cities with the highest concentration of lead-poisoned children: Trenton, Camden, Newark,  East Orange and Irvington. Together, these five cities accounted for 31 percent of all reported lead poisonings in New Jersey in FY 2005.

At each of the 104 addresses at which DPA field staff conducted tests, one or more children had already been lead poisoned within the past 10 years. Additionally, a minimum of approximately one-third of the homes had already undergone an abatement.  DPA took up to 12 samples in each of the homes of the floors, window sills and window wells. 

The results were of grave concern.  DPA found lead dust levels exceeding the action level  in 85 of the homes tested, or 82 percent.  Window wells can be contaminated by outside pollution, but even if the window well tests are excluded, 57 percent of homes had elevated lead levels on the interior window sills or floors.

In addition, DPA investigators found shoddy abatement and clean-up work and interviewed families of children whose blood lead levels were higher after the lead problem in their home had supposedly been cleaned up.

After receiving the test results, DPA immediately contacted families in homes with elevated lead levels and urged them to get their children tested.  Of the 15 child test results DPA has received, more than half have a level above ten micrograms per deciliter of whole blood, the federal level of concern.

The families were also assigned a social worker and referred to a Legal Services attorney to help them navigate the lead bureaucracy and access abatement and relocation assistance.   

DPA also immediately began working with other state agencies that play a role in our lead poisoning prevention system and the response was swift and effective. The Department of Health & Senior Services (DHSS) and the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) and other state departments have partnered with DPA in this process.

Upon learning of this serious problem, the DHSS instructed local health departments to re-inspect the 85 residences we had identified as having elevated lead dust levels and take appropriate follow-up action.

Both DHSS and DCA have also taken steps to improve the state’s response to lead poisoning in the short-term and are collaborating with the Public Advocate on long-term changes that will emphasize reducing and eliminating exposure to lead hazards before a child is poisoned.

The specific problems identified in the Public Advocate’s investigation include:

• New Jersey’s lead poisoning standard for environmental intervention is  20 micrograms of lead per deciliter of whole blood, and should be lowered.  Lead exposure can cause brain damage, developmental delays, reduced IQ, reading and learning disabilities, behavioral problems, hearing impairments, and hyperactivity. Lead exposure can also impair the development and functioning of vital organs and can result in convulsions, coma, and even death.

• In FY 2005, of all the children under six years of age screened for lead in New Jersey, 2.4 percent, or 4,048 children, were found to have a level at or above ten micrograms per deciliter of whole blood, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) level of concern. While this number improves every year, it remains unacceptably high.

• New Jersey’s housing stock is old, with more than half built before the sale of lead paint was prohibited in 1978, and while the lead poisoning problem is statewide it is particularly bad in older urban areas.

• According to the CDC, New Jersey’s percentage of poisoning is not only above the national average, but also above other northeastern States, such as New York and Massachusetts, that have similarly old housing stocks.

• It can take months and even years for a home to be cleaned up, or abated, after a child is first known to be lead poisoned.

• Our review of DHSS records going back ten years in the five selected cities revealed that local health departments ordered abatements in only about 60 percent of the cases where a child had been poisoned and, of those, about 20 percent never happened

• Abatement contractors can get away with shoddy, inferior work because legal standards governing their performance are inadequate.

• Children are being re-poisoned in homes that should have been lead-safe. In a particularly heart-breaking case, an eight-year-old Newark boy suffered severe brain damage as a result of a blood lead level of 65 micrograms per deciliter only to be moved to another lead-burdened house – where he was poisoned again.

• Childhood lead poisoning significantly burdens State resources because it increases health care and educational costs and requires the State to provide long-term services to individuals who suffer from disabilities or behavioral problems due to poisoning.

• Families are often left without information, financial assistance, and housing alternatives.  Although funding is available to relocate families to lead-safe housing, fewer than 100 families have been able to use this funding in the last three years.

In order to strengthen the state’s lead poisoning response and prevention efforts, the DPA and five agencies embarked on a collaborative effort to:

• Reduce the lead poisoning intervention level and increase blood screening of children in at-risk neighborhoods.

• Ensure that all residents in a multi-unit dwelling are notified if one unit is found to have lead paint hazards.

• Change policies to ensure that relocation assistance lasts until the abatement is completed.

• Limit the time between when a child is identified as lead poisoned and when his or her home is declared successfully abated and lead-safe.

• Streamline the application process for Lead Hazard Control Assistance, which provides funds for abatement, fully enforce abatement laws, and examine the work practices of licensed abaters.

• Increase monitoring and oversight of the final clearance inspection function, suspend or revoke the licenses of negligent abaters and clearance inspectors and prohibit companies and their subcontractors from performing both lead abatement and clearance functions on the same remediation project.

• Create and disseminate easily understandable and accessible public education materials that outline the dangers of lead poisoning and how families can access needed services.

The DPA also reported our findings and recommendations to the five municipalities that were the subject of our field investigation.  The municipalities have responded in a number of positive ways. In the coming months, the DPA expects to forge Model Lead-Safe City agreements with municipalities wherein they agree to perform an increased number of inspections, strengthen local lead hazard ordinances, crack down on substandard abaters, and improve community education efforts.  In addition, the DPA will work with legislative leaders to forge comprehensive reforms to the systems for responding to and preventing lead poisoning.

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