Town of Morristown signs “Model Lead-Safe City” agreement with NJ Public Advocate

 Morristown to implement aggressive actions to prevent childhood lead poisoning

MORRISTOWN –The Town of Morristown has signed an agreement with the New Jersey Public Advocate to aggressively respond to and prevent the problem of childhood lead poisoning.

View Model Lead-Safe Agreement

“The Town of Morristown has implemented several measures to combat the problem of childhood lead poisoning.  We take the health and welfare of our children very seriously.  This collaborative Model Lead-Safe agreement expresses our commitment to reducing, and ultimately eliminating this preventable Public Health problem in Morristown,” stated Mayor Donald Cresitello, who signed the agreement.

“The Town of Morristown has shown great initiative in taking steps to prevent childhood lead poisoning and I commend their efforts,” 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.

Approximately 85% of Morristown housing was built before 1978, when the national ban on the sale of lead paint went into effect, and approximately 58% of the housing in Morristown was built before 1950 when the level of lead in paint was at its highest.

There are approximately 1,234 children under the age of six in the Town of Morristown.  Of those populations, approximately 1.0% of the children in The Town of Morristown who were screened in FY 2007 were found to have a blood lead level at or above the federal level of concern.

Under the Model Lead-Safe City agreement signed today, town 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; crack down on landlords who fail to abate lead-contaminated properties; and provide more lead-safe housing to affected families.

Specifically, Morristown will:

• Designate a Model Lead-Safe City Coordinator
• Distribute education materials through the public schools, child care centers, and Head Start programs
• Utilize geographic mapping software to identify areas where children are most at risk and target those areas for additional screening.
• Train more town employees to become lead inspectors.
• Require that all people living in a multi-unit dwelling be notified if a child who lives there is diagnosed with lead poisoning
• Track down landlords who refuse to comply with abatement orders.
• Work with the state to identify lead-safe housing and work to relocate lead-burdened families to lead-free housing.
• Advise landlords on the use of specialized cleaning techniques to minimize exposure to lead hazards, and the existence of disclosure laws.

More information about the dangers of childhood lead poisoning, to obtain a free home lead dust  testing kit, or to contact local health departments, visit at www.state.nj.us/publicadvocate

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