Lead Poisoning May Be Color Blind, But In New York State, It’s Not an Equal Opportunity Menace

December 1, 2007

Author: Michael Hanley

Lead-based paint can poison any child -- regardless of race or ethnicity. The shameful truth, though, is that in New York State lead-paint hazards pose a far greater threat to Black and Latino children than to their White, non-Latino counterparts. Outside of New York City, a Black child under age five in New York is 8 ½ times more likely to live in a neighborhood linked to high incidences of lead poisoning than is a White, non-Latino child. True, risk is partially related to poverty, but that link alone does not explain why minorities are at so much greater risk. (In fact, there are actually more white children living in poverty than non-white children). No, it’s time to recognize a harder reality, and more importantly, to commit to addressing it: For over a decade we have known which neighborhoods are most likely to contain housing with lead-hazards; we have known that they include the highest concentrations of minority children in the state; and we have failed to take the simple steps needed to keep these children from being permanently injured by lead.

Under the prior state administration, the health department and housing agencies simply did not have any plan for inspecting housing for lead paint hazards until it was already too late. That is, no health or building official would go out to inspect a house or apartment for lead hazards until after a child had already become poisoned and had become permanently impaired by lead. Maybe we could understand this failure better if we hadn’t known where to look for lead hazards. But it turns out that we did know where to look. We just didn’t do it. As a result, thousands of children, disproportionately minority in number, have been poisoned unnecessarily by lead.

State Health Department data shows that in 2001 over 41% of the children poisoned in the state (outside of New York City) lived in only 36 of the state’s nearly 1700 zip codes. The Department of Health labeled these areas as “high incidence rate” zip codes. In a way, that should have been really good news. It meant that we should have been able to attack the problem without trying to inspect every house and every apartment in the state. Accompanying the identification of these high risk areas in 2001, the state pledged to pursue a plan for “primary prevention.” That’s the term used for the strategy of finding lead-hazards in buildings before children are poisoned. But, despite lip service about primary prevention in annual reports from the Department of Health, the Division of Housing, and the Department of State, New York never took the actions needed to make those inspections happen.

How could it be that no steps were taken to assure that the housing units in these neighborhoods were inspected for lead hazards? Well, the state has repeatedly noted in its official reports that lead poisoning rates have been dropping consistently since lead was taken out of gasoline in 1974, and out of paint in 1978. So, the problem was being solved, no?

Unfortunately this overall decline in the lead poisoning rate was not reflected in the high risk areas. Lead paint was still on the walls of those older houses, and as the years went by, it was even more likely to flake and peel. After all, those houses are now half a century older than they were when the baby-boomers (who may have grown up in the same houses without having been poisoned by lead) played on their porches. And like the boomers, their siding and infrastructure isn’t what it used to be. Roofs and windows have deteriorated, adding to the flaking and peeling of the paint.

In the absence of leadership from the state, however, none of the housing in these neighborhoods was ever routinely inspected for lead paint hazards. Perhaps local health officials saw building inspections as a “housing” problem, and local building inspectors saw it as a “health” problem. At any rate, no one apparently saw it as his or her job and state officials simply never addressed the administration gap.

In fact, in most municipalities, the presence of lead-paint hazards is not even a building code violation. Although hazards can be cited under the state Public Health Law, as far as we know, no local building officials have been designated (as the state law allows) to enforce the Public Health Law. It was not until the City of Rochester finally adopted a local ordinance in late 2005 requiring inspections in high risk areas, that there was any requirement for the routine inspection for lead paint hazards in any of 36 the zip codes identified by the state as "high incidence rate” zip codes. Consequently, lead hazard inspections occurred only after it was too late, that is, after a child had been poisoned.

Of course, not only children have suffered from this avoidable tragedy. Out of the 36 zip codes identified by the state in 2001, nine were in Buffalo; six were in Rochester; five were in Syracuse; and five were in Albany. Lead poisoning has had a devastating social and economic impact upon these cities, imposing overwhelming burdens on their schools and criminal justice systems. But without doubt it is the children, particularly the minority children, who continue to be most directly in harm’s way. According to the 2000 census data, the 36 high risk areas identified by the state are home to over 91% of the Black children under age 5 of the city of Buffalo; over 87% of those in Albany; nearly 80% of those in Rochester and over 65 % of those in Syracuse. The numbers are nearly as high for Latino children. Almost unbelievably, over 33% of ALL of the Black children under age five in New York State (outside of New York City) lived in one of the 36 zip codes identified by the Department of Health as a high incidence rate zip code.

We call upon our new Governor, and his Executive agencies, to address this injustice. A starting point will be to make sure that updated data is made available to the public on a timely basis in order to assure the transparency that is needed to monitor progress. But public concern will not be enough to solve the problem. A legislative mandate is also needed secure the guarantee that the state, regardless of who is sitting in the Governor’s office, will remain vigilant in protecting its most vulnerable residents from lead poisoning.

A new bill sponsored by Senator Bill Perkins will require the Department of Health to each year identify the neighborhoods where the lead poisoning risks continue to be the highest. The legislation will then require the Department of Health -- under our new Commissioner -- to give local health and building officials in those communities the help that they need to develop effective "primary prevention plans." And, to make sure the housing gets fixed, the bill provides financial assistance to property owners, in the form of low interest loans and tax credits, to make sure they have help to eliminate lead-paint hazards. Not until these primary prevention plans are in place in the neighborhoods where they are most needed, will we finally be able to eliminate lead-paint hazards in buildings before children are poisoned and before their lives are ruined – regardless of their color.