Lead Paint
While areas of the country such as Flint, Mich., and Newark, N.J., receive attention for their lead-related issues, the state of Rhode Island faces extensive lead issues of its own, Muckrock reports. The state pledged to eliminate lead poisoning by 2010, but a report from the fall found 7% of kindergarteners entering school had blood lead levels high enough to trigger a public health response.
These data put Rhode Island at twice the national average for rates of lead poisoning, but both officials at the Department of Health (DOH) and advocates at community organizations believe that the numbers are marked progress over previous testing levels. In 2001, an estimated 55 percent of new Rhode Island kindergartners tested positive for dangerous levels of blood lead.
Flint and Newark have made national headlines for delivering lead-poisoned water to their residents. However, in Rhode Island, state officials and local advocates have been quietly struggling to fight a different, yet similarly dangerous, source of lead poisoning for nearly half a century. Industrial byproducts and Rhode Island’s old and crumbling housing stock have created a physical environment in which the state’s children have been ingesting toxins for decades.
“I’m both proud and slightly frustrated by the fact that we’re considered pretty far ahead of the game nationwide,” Brion said of Rhode Island’s attempts at mitigation. “On the one hand, we have some great laws in place that are making a difference. Our lead poisoning levels have plummeted in Rhode Island over the past couple of decades. But they’re still at totally unacceptable levels. Hundreds of children are poisoned for the first time every year. The downward trend makes me happy. The fact that it isn’t at zero infuriates me.”
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