City of Vineland signs “Model Lead-Safe City” agreement with Public Advocate

VINELAND –The City of Vineland has signed a landmark agreement with the New Jersey Public Advocate to aggressively respond to and prevent the problem of childhood lead poisoning.

View Model-Lead Safe City Agreement

This agreement commits the city to implementing one of the most comprehensive lead poisoning response and prevention programs in the state.

“In the past year, the city health department has added additional measures to tackle the issue of childhood lead poisoning,” said Mayor Robert Romano. “This agreement builds on the work already being done here and sets some significant goals that will put the city on a course to reduce and ultimately eliminate this pressing public health concern.”

Flanked by local families who have experienced the childhood poisoning problem, New Jersey Public Advocate Ronald K. Chen and City Mayor Romano signed an agreement designating Vineland as a “Model Lead-Safe City.”

“The City of Vineland is to be commended for taking such an aggressive stance against childhood lead poisoning,” said Chen, who unveiled a report in April 2008 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.

There are approximately 4,275 children under the age of six in the City of Vineland and  2.22% of the children in Vineland who were screened in Fiscal Year 2007 were found to have a blood lead level at or above the federal level of concern;

In addition, 79% of the city’s housing was built before 1978, when the national ban on the sale of lead paint went into effect, and about 41% of the housing in the city was built before 1950 when the level of lead in paint was at its highest.

Under the Model Lead-Safe City agreement signed today, city officials committed to take steps to: improve educational outreach on the issue; 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 City will:

• Designate a City official to be the official Model Lead Safe City coordinator;
• Convene a working group on lead safety;
• Distribute lead poisoning prevention information through the City schools and parent teacher organizations and the City Office of Vital Statistics;
• Work with local community-based organizations to increase blood screening rates in areas within the City where, according to DHSS and local mapping results, children are most at-risk of lead poisoning.
• Require that all people living in a multi-unit dwelling be notified if a child who lives there is diagnosed with lead poisoning;
• Require the Vineland Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) and Department of Health (DOH) to periodically inspect projects that have received orders to abate to ensure that the work is done;
• Begin investigating availability and negotiate prices with lead safe hotels that will accept a voucher from the State of New Jersey, for temporary relocation of families that have lead-burdened children;
• Maintain a list of abated (lead safe) properties in the Department of Health and Community Development to share with families of lead-burdened children for possible permanent or temporary relocation;
• As part of the EPA’s “Lead–Based Paint Renovation, Repair and Painting Program Rule,”  require lead safe work practice training for contractors, home owners, demolition experts, and redevelopment contractors doing work on pre-1978 housing;
• Continue its enforcement of lead-based paint abatement orders and prosecute uncooperative and/or absentee landlords;
• Have its Registered Environmental Health Specialists (REHS’s) and Public Health Nurses survey retail establishments that may be selling recalled toys and other merchandise containing lead; and
• Apply for federal grants to support increased lead screening, home inspections and abatements, and family relocations.

Lead, a metallic substance, remains in the environment years after its initial use.  It is toxic to the body’s tissue and enzymes and can cause brain damage, learning delays and, in extreme cases, coma and even death. Even though lead has been banned for decades, it still may be present in homes built prior to 1978 and is most commonly found in chipping or peeling paints, plumbing and surrounding soil. 

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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