By james art By Will Atwater and Anne Blythe
Durham resident Midori Brooks has waged a decades-long battle to free her family from lead exposure.
The 55-year-old woman’s struggle with this environmental problem dates back to the mid-1990s, when she and her family lived in a rented house in west Durham. Her three children were there came into contact with lead-contaminated dust.
When her oldest son was a toddler, she learned he had a blood lead level of 28 micrograms per deciliter, she told NC Health News in 2022. Doctors described her son’s readings as “quite high,” requiring “quick action.” The Centers for Disease Control states that a child’s blood lead level of 3.5 to 5 micrograms per deciliter requires immediate attention.
“The summary report came back and said he’s going to struggle for the rest of his life with school and the workforce,” Brooks said.
Three decades later, she’s still fighting lead — this time in a different house as a low-income homeowner. Her oldest son, haunted throughout his life by the effects of his early exposure to lead, has four children of his own. Three of them live with Brooks.
Lead, which can enter the body through inhalation or ingestion, is a neurotoxin that migrates to the brain, liver, and kidneys after entering the bloodstream. The element eventually settles in the bones and teeth, where it can build up over time. It can be especially harmful to young children, causing irreversible problems in brain development, lower IQ and damage to the kidneys and nervous system. Very high levels of lead can lead to seizures, loss of consciousness and even death, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Several years ago, Brooks discovered that her home at the corner of Holloway and North Driver streets in downtown Durham was contaminated with lead and asbestos. With limited resources, she turned to nonprofit organizations and government programs for renovation and recovery. Until now, this process has been beset with delays.
New standards for lead
Brooks continues to wait for help as the Biden-Harris administration ramps up efforts to rid the nation’s infrastructure and homes of lead pipes. Just last week, the US Environmental Protection Agency passed a new rule that should lead to the removal of lead dust from millions of homes across the country.
Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, came to Durham earlier this year to highlight the administration’s efforts to rid the nation’s infrastructure and schools of lead water pipes and paint that continue to pose a danger to young and old alike. old.
Some of these actions were highlighted during National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week. The EPA announced its new standards on Oct. 24 for allowable levels of lead dust in homes built before 1978.
The final standards will minimize the risk of lead exposure for more than a million people a year and up to 326,000 children “under the age of six [and provide] public health and economic benefits up to 30 times the costs,” the EPA said in a statement.
“Too often, our children, the most vulnerable residents of already overburdened communities, are hardest hit by the toxic legacy of lead-based paint,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan.
“We can breathe a little easier now that the EPA has significantly lowered its dust lead standard to protect children,” said Peggy Shepherd, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a New York-based advocacy group.
It falls between the cracks
Despite a sustained effort by the Biden administration that has poured hundreds of millions of federal dollars into programs targeting schools, daycare centers and homes, people like Brooks — low-income homeowners — find themselves caught up in the slow work of government grant selection processes . Sometimes they fall through the cracks.
The EPA estimates that there are “31 million pre-1978 homes that still contain lead-based paint, and 3.8 million of those have one or more children under the age of six living there,” it states the message.
The current initiatives advance the Biden administration’s 2021 Action Plan on Lead Pipes and Paint, which was created to protect children from lead exposure.
That year, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and the General Assembly approved Senate Bill 105, which provided “$150 million in one-time funds to address inspections of lead in water, asbestos and lead paint and to reduce hazards in public schools and licensed child care facilities.” .”
Under the final EPA standards, the allowable levels of lead paint dust have been lowered from the previous standard. The rule reduces the amount considered hazardous in dust to “any reportable level measured by an EPA-recognized laboratory,” according to the release. The release also states that the final rule lowers the allowable level of lead dust on floors, baseboards and window sills.
For example, the current standard reduces the allowable amount of lead dust on floors from 10 micrograms per square foot to 5 micrograms per square foot. The allowable limit for window sills is 40 micrograms per square foot, down from 100 micrograms. The biggest reduction from the previous standard to the current one is in window troughs. The previous level of 400 micrograms per square foot was reduced to 100 micrograms per square foot.
Roadblocks
In 2019, the federal government provided the City of Durham with funding to carry out lead abatement at high-risk sites in the city. The funds, totaling more than $3 million, were earmarked for the city’s lead-based paint abatement program and consisted of federal and city dollars.
To be eligible, people must be low-income Durham City residents who own or rent a home “built in 1978 or earlier where children (ages 6 and under) live or spend significant time” , according to a fact sheet about the program released by the city.
Unfortunately, the program only lasted one year (2020-2021) and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development did not renew funding. It’s unclear how many of the 116 eligible homes received services.
Clearly, the Brooks home is not one of them.
In 2023, Brooks contacted NC Health News and was excited to share that the city had found a contractor to do lead abatement work on the home she had lived in since 1995. However, the project was put on hold. , when Brooks was unable to find affordable temporary housing for his family.
But she persisted and started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to cover temporary housing for four weeks, which is the amount of time the contractor had budgeted for the job, Brooks said.
In July 2023, NC Health News caught up with Brooks to find out how things were going. In a text message, she said things are getting better. Asked if she knew when the work would start, she said: “I don’t know. All I know is that I have a safe place for me and my family.
However, more obstacles followed and Brooks is still waiting.
Brooks said recently that Durham city officials told her there was a problem with the work permit process and once that was resolved the project would move forward.
It remains to be seen whether the Biden administration’s latest initiative to reduce the risk of exposure to lead dust will help Brooks.
In February 2024, Brooks shared the following with NC Health News about his current struggle. “We’re trying to get this house done well before the pandemic.”
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.