Irvington signs “Model Lead-Safe City” agreement with NJ Public Advocate

Announce aggressive actions to prevent childhood lead poisoning

IRVINGTON –The Township of Irvington today joined the growing list of New Jersey cities to sign an agreement with the New Jersey Public Advocate to aggressively respond to and prevent the problem of childhood lead poisoning.

New Jersey Public Advocate Ronald K. Chen and Township Mayor Wayne Smith signed an agreement designating Irvington as the state’s fourth “Model Lead-Safe City.”

View Irvington Model Lead-Safe City Agreement

 “We take the health and welfare of our children very seriously here in Irvington and we are proud of our efforts to combat this problem so far and look forward to partnering with the Public Advocate to further enhance those efforts,” said Mayor Smith. “We are dedicated to doing whatever it takes to keep our children safe.”

“The Township of Irvington is a leader among New Jersey's cities in addressing the problem of childhood lead poisoning,” said Chen, who unveiled a report in April that showed that thousands of children in New Jersey are poisoned in their homes every year due to exposure to deteriorating lead-based paint.

According to the Public Advocate’s report, the childhood lead poisoning problem was determined to be particularly acute in the state’s major cities. In response to the report, Governor Jon S. Corzine has signed an executive order requiring state departments to tighten their lead poisoning prevention activities

Under the Model Lead-Safe City agreement signed today, township officials committed to take steps to: improve educational outreach on the issue, especially through township schools; expand the number of children screened for lead poisoning; improve the inspections of properties that may be lead-burdened; tighten oversight of lead abatement contractors; and provide improved relocation assistance and more lead-safe housing to affected families.

Specifically, the Township will:

• designate two Lead Safe City Coordinators who will head up all efforts related to responding to and preventing lead poisoning, 
• distribute lead poisoning educational materials to parents through township public and private schools including through PTAs, PTOs, school nurses and preschool programs;
• require that lead testing dates be recorded on children's school immunization records;
• in partnership with UMDNJ, identify neighborhoods most at risk and test children living there;
• consider adopting an ordinance that requires a full lead inspection/risk assessment be completed by a private certified lead evaluator before the issuance of a certificate of occupancy in all multi-family dwellings built before 1960. 
• require that all people living in a multi-unit dwelling be notified if a child who lives there is diagnosed with lead poisoning;
• require landlords to provide actual addresses, rather than P.O. boxes, for properties they are renting;
• tighten oversight of lead abatement contractors and require that the lowest bidder on public lead abatement contracts also be subject to quality criteria;
• apply for federal grants to support increased lead screening, home inspections and abatements, and family relocations.
• ensure that contractors and demolition experts are trained in lead-safe work practices
• ensure that owners or developers who are using Township funds to rehabilitate property use lead-safe work practices and licensed abaters.
  

According to the Department of Health and Senior Services’ (DHSS) FY 2006 Annual Report on Childhood Lead Poisoning, there are approximately 6,000 children under the age of six in the Township of Irvington, and the Township is home to 4.3 percent of all lead-burdened children statewide. In addition, about 92 percent of Irvington’s housing was built before 1978, when the national ban on the sale of lead paint went into effect, and approximately 43 percent of the housing in Irvington was built before 1950 when the level of lead in paint was at its highest.

The New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate 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 inspected, one or more children had already been lead poisoned within the past 10 years, and thus were or should have been inspected. 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. 

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