Lead Paint
The city of Columbus, Ohio, has been awarded a $5.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to remove lead from homes, The Columbus Dispatch reports. The city is targeting 300 homes for cleanup and 201 houses for assessment.
“We look at this as seed money,” said Joseph P. Galvan, Midwest regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Over the past nine years, the city has used $10 million in federal money to make 671 properties lead-safe, said Erica Hudson, the program manager for Lead Safe Columbus. The city was awarded $3.4 million in federal money in 2016, and it has used $700,000 in city money since then. That federal grant is running out.
Columbus is one of 77 state and local government agencies nationwide getting a share of more than $314 million in grants. An additional $5 million is going to six tribal communities.
In September, Gov. Mike DeWine announced the formation of the Governor’s Lead Advisory Committee to advise the state’s efforts to remediate lead contamination. Over the next two years, the state plans to spend $25 million to prevent and deal with lead poisoning and to clean homes of lead.
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