THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9509290187
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Who's responsible for kids who get lead poisoning?
That's a serious question asked by residents of Washington Park, a public housing project near the Abex Superfund Site, where the owner has accepted an EPA decree to clean up the polluted soil.
As attorney Susan Hansen explained to City Council on Tuesday, the decree is about responsibility for the soil, not the children.
Who then is liable for any human lead contamination?
Chances are that anybody over 40 or anybody who has lived in older houses, even in recent years, has been exposed to as much lead as children living in Washington Park today. In Portsmouth, that's a large percentage of the population; yet only a small percentage of them show any serious amount of lead contamination.
Apparently the risk comes mainly with ingestion of lead. Children who don't eat paint or dirt and those who wash their hands after playing and before eating seldom get lead poisoning.
Since there were fewer learning-impaired children in bygone years when lead was the base of all paint and some other substances, it seems evident that something besides the awareness of lead has changed. Could it be that we no longer discipline children ``for their own good'' and, therefore, we do not forbid them to eat paint and dirt? Could it be that we no longer teach them to wash their hands before eating?
Parents in 1995 are more aware of the dangers of lead and other contaminants than parents were a generation ago. Public health workers and other government employees do a much better job of informing people of health hazards than they did even a few years ago. The Portsmouth Health Department has gone so far as to publish a newsletter devoted solely to lead. The newspaper and the electronic media disseminate a lot of information about lead and other environmental hazards.
Nobody can plead ignorance of the dangers. With that knowledge, it's a matter of teaching children some good habits to avoid the hazards. It's probably a good rule of thumb to avoid eating dirt or gnawing on the woodwork. Lead or no lead, it's always a good idea to wash your hands when they're dirty and certainly to wash them before you eat.
Nobody wants the soil anywhere to be contaminated but, since much of it already is, it's time for parents to start paying attention to what their kids are doing. It's time to go back to making children behave in certain ways ``for their own good.''
Who's responsible for the children? Parents must resume that role if we are going to head off all the potential disaster around us. by CNB