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GARDEN STATE ENVIRONEWS 011106

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Phil Reynolds

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Nov 7, 2001, 12:42:47 AM11/7/01

011106

GARDEN STATE ENVIRONEWS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
{*} THREAT TO STERLING FOREST STATE PARK - NY
{*} RINGWOOD: PRESERVATIONISTS HAIL TORY TRACT'S PURCHASE
{*} POISONED CHILDREN
{*} LEAD: ALL-PURPOSE MATERIAL, ALL-AROUND PERIL
{*} THE BLOOD CAN BE CLEANSED, BUT THE DANGER ISN'T OVER
{*} HOW TO MINIMIZE LEAD DANGERS

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THREAT TO STERLING FOREST STATE PARK - NY

Date: 06 Nov 2001
From: Edward Goodell {goo...@nynjtc.com}

THREAT TO STERLING FOREST STATE PARK
AND THE RAMAPO/WANAQUE WATER SYSTEMS

Learn About the

STERLING FORGE ESTATES DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Monday, November, 12 from 6:30 to 8:00 pm
Red Apple Rest, Route 17 in Tuxedo

A benign-looking development plan presents shocking environmental
problems - and it's right in the middle of Sterling Forest State Park!

Sterling Forest Corporation plans to build a 575-acre golf course and
community of 103 luxury homes completely surrounded by the new
Sterling Forest State Park. This is the State Park we all worked so
long and hard for, the State Park that the Federal Government, the
States of New York and New Jersey and private funders spent $83
million to acquire, the State Park that is supposed to protect
drinking water for two million people in the Ramapo and Wanaque
Reservoir system.

At our public information meeting scientists and experts will present
concerns about the issues in connection with: Construction of the golf
course by major blasting of bedrock, bringing in fill and contouring
the land around wetlands. Use of mine water to water the greens and
use of chemicals to maintain them. Potential threat to the quality,
quantity and flow of the groundwater system, and how that can degrade
the Ramapo and Wanaque watersheds. Restriction of public use of the
State Park. DEIS NEEDS PUBLIC SCRUTINY IMMEDIATELY! Find out what you
can do to help protect the State Park, the Ramapo and Wanaque
watershed.

Prepare yourself for making public comment on the DEIS (Draft
Environmental Impact Statement) at a public hearing scheduled for
Wednesday, November 28 at 7:30 p.m. at the Tuxedo Town Hall.

Pen In These Two Important Dates:

November 12 (Mon.) Information Meeting
6:30 pm Red Apple Rest
Tuxedo, NY on Route 17

November 28 (Wed.) DEIS Public Hearing
7:30 PM Tuxedo Town Hall

Directions to Red Apple Rest:

From the south, take Rt. 17 north through Tuxedo 4+ miles. About .2
miles beyond the traffic light at Rt. 17/17A the Red Apple Rest is on
the right. From the North, follow 17 south. About .1mile beyond
Southfields the Red Apple Rest is on the left. For more information
call Mary Yrizarry, Sterling Forest Partnership, 845-783-4302

Contributions by check and marked "Sterling Forest Protection" can be
mailed to: NY-NJ Trail Conference, 156 Ramapo Valley Road, Mahwah NJ
07430. For a credit card donation, call the office 201-512-9348
Supplemental information to the November 12 meeting notice

- - -

STERLING FORGE ESTATES GOLF COURSE DEVELOPMENT PLAN SUMMARY

Scientists and Experts will be on hand to Discuss Fully at
Information Meeting on November 12

The Town Board of Tuxedo sees this proposal as tax positive and a
"green" environmentally-friendly land use. However, most of the 575
acres proposed for this development are on very rugged landscape,
consisting of steep ridges of exposed bedrock and very thin soils
(where there is any soil at all). The only level areas are composed of
wetlands and stream valleys. Turning this property into a golf course
and a slice of suburbia is going to require a massive change to the
landscape with far-reaching environmental impacts that will extend
beyond the boundaries of the Sterling Forge property into the Sterling
Forest State Park, Tuxedo Lake and Tuxedo Park, the Ramapo River, and
potentially even into New Jersey as well.

Here are just some of the impacts:

Earth Moving

The DEIS estimates that "911,528 cubic yards of earth and rock will be
moved on the site in the construction of the project." This amount of
material would fill 45,577 20-yard dump trucks, 65,110 standard 14-
yard dump trucks! In addition, the proposed project would require
importing 220,500 cubic yards of special soil mixes, sand, and gravel.
The DEIS projects that bringing in just this material will require
11,025 truck loads, or an average of 40 truck trips per work day over
a total construction period of 20 months.

Blasting

The Corporation's "Anticipated Locations of Blasting" map shows
massive, quarry-sized areas of bedrock blasting spread throughout the
entire parcel. The map does not even include the blasting needed to
build the home foundations! Most of the 103 home sites are located on
steep slopes and rock ridges, which would add significantly to the
blasting. Without the home building calculations, the DEIS states that
blasting will amount to 242,300 cubic yards of rock. Allowing for a
50% expansion when dumping, this volume would fill 25,961 standard 14-
yard dump trucks!

Groundwater

For two years, geologists have been studying how rock formations in
Sterling Forest and the surrounding region effect underground water
flow. The groundwater system on the parcel is totally contained within
bedrock cracks and fissures that carry the flow like water pipes.. The
blasting program will seriously alter this system of fractures. The
potential for changing the chemistry, quantity and direction of flow
of water into Tuxedo Lake and Sterling Lake is very serious.

Water Quality

Surface water passes through very thin soil cover before it reaches
the ground water system, with little or no natural filtration or
treatment for contaminants. Once within the "pipeline" bedrock, all
pollutants are delivered directly to receiving areas, such as Tuxedo
Lake, Sterling Lake, and the Ramapo River, without any further
treatment. The proposed golf course operation will introduce
fertilizers and pesticides into this groundwater system. In addition,
the applicant proposes to irrigate the golf course by pumping as much
as 400,000 gallons per day from the old deep iron mines underlying the
parcel. Mines in similar geology in the region have been found to have
acidic pH levels as low as 2.6 (7.0 is neutral out of a 14.0 scale)!
In addition, the mines also contain other materials, such as heavy
metals and potentially even uranium and radium, that could be found
dissolved in the mine water. The Water Quality Testing study contained
in the DEIS did not include these metals in its testing, but manganese
and magnesium were both found to be present in concentrations that
were approximately 10 times normal levels.

Endangered Species

The DEIS biological inventory study makes a mockery of Sterling Forest
State Park's own 2-year studies of species within the Park, which has
recorded a rich diversity of species from common to rare and
endangered. The DEIS states that "no endangered or threatened plant
species were observed on the project site." In a contradictory claim,
the DEIS cites the Hairy Umbrella Sedge (Fuirena squarrosa) in its
list of observed species, which until now was believed to have been
extirpated from the state of New York! The DEIS also provides limited
information on rare and endangered wildlife species, and it does not
appear that any specific search for such species was conducted.

Wetlands

Several wetlands on the property were not even mapped in the DEIS,
including one at the southern property boundary which is proposed to
receive TWELVE feet of fill for the construction of the 7th green and
a portion of the 7th fairway.

Historic and Archaeological Resources

The project site was part of the Sterling Iron Estate, which was
critical in the fight for American independence in manufacturing arms,
cannon balls, anchors, and, most importantly, the Great Chain across
the Hudson River during the Revolutionary War. While the mines on the
site are well documented, any evidence of other lesser known or
unknown features, such as test mine sites, charcoal maker's camps,
collier's rings (where charcoal was made), occupation sites, etc.,
will be destroyed by the massive earth movement, blasting, and
development program proposed.

The Corporation's Threat

Underlying this proposal is the implied threat of much more massive
environmental impact should the site be developed under the current
zoning, of which 413 of the 575 acres is zoned for research office and
light industrial uses. In fact, the alternative analysis in the DEIS
states that the property could accommodate up to 20,686,208 square
feet of light industrial/office space and up to 55 homes. However, the
analysis leaves out one vital piece of information: A conservation
easement (which would still allow the golf course) has already been
purchased by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission on 250 acres
that the analysis states is available for development. If not
developed for a golf course, these 250 acres cannot be developed for
anything.

Learn more on Monday, November, 12 from 6:30 to 8:00 pm, at the Red
Apple Rest, Route 17 in Tuxedo

For more information call Mary Yrizarry, Sterling Forest Partnership,
845-783-4302

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RINGWOOD: PRESERVATIONISTS HAIL TORY TRACT'S PURCHASE

Date: 011106
From: "Dennis W. Schvejda" {dsch...@igc.org}

By Jan Barry, Staff Writer, Bergen Record, November 6, 2001

Ringwood - From atop a mountain knob called Tory Rocks, you can see
the shafts of autumn sunlight glint on peaks in Sterling Forest to the
north.

To the east, three cone-shaped mountains jut skyward beyond a wooded
valley that drops toward the Wanaque Reservoir, hidden amid the
foliage. More forested ridges march across the southern horizon. To
the west, another tree-crowned peak.

The tree-fringed granite outcroppings and glacial till streams have
changed little since, according to legend, British loyalists -
"Tories" - hid out there during the Revolution.

And now, that vantage point and the 300 acres of hardwood around it
belong to the American public.

Preserving the Tory Tract from suburban development entailed a 15-
year tug of war that ended recently when $1.1 million in public and
private funds was used to buy the property off Burnt Meadow Road from
a South Jersey development group.

The campaign began with a conversation among preservation-minded
borough residents and eventually involved Green Acres officials and a
foundation's largesse. Beyond the property's charming legends and
picturesque views, they point to its lasting value in the development-
pressured region.

"This is the most important acquisition in the Highlands since
Sterling Forest," said Jeff Tittel, a Ringwood resident and director
of the state chapter of the Sierra Club. "It protects a reservoir
watershed. It provides wildlife habitat and hiking recreation. It
helps form a greenway. It does all the things open space is supposed
to do.

"This was going to be a street," Tittel noted one recent afternoon as
he tramped along a sloping forest trail festooned with autumn leaves.
"This all would have been building lots," he noted as the trail
twisted up a steep slope featuring lichen-covered boulders and faintly
scented ferns.

A white-tailed deer bounded past. Black bears, hawks, and wild
turkeys also shelter here, Tittel noted. And trout splash in the rocky
brooks.

Tittel recalled how the plans to bulldoze mountain streams and slopes
for a housing subdivision propelled him into a career as an
environmental activist.

"I got involved because I wanted to learn how to fight bad
development. It was like a graduate degree in conservation," he said
of the experience.

Tom Sergi, a former Planning Board member, recalled first raising an
alarm about development plans for the Tory Tract to Tittel as they
were working out at a Pompton Lakes gym in 1986.

"It's just phenomenal," Sergi said of the site. "It's a little slice
of heaven. It was worth it," he said of all the research and testimony
at public hearings that he, Tittel, and others did to present the
preservation argument.

"It went from two guys talking to a $1.1 million partnership, with
all the major players," Sergi said. "A lot of people played key
roles."

Another preservation supporter, Tibor Latincsics, offers more
superlatives. An avid hiker who is a project engineer for a nearby
housing development, Latincsics led a recent celebratory hike around
the Tory Tract, following a blazed path that has been on hiking maps
since the 1920s.

"This is a win-win-win," he said. "It has every attribute - from
trails to viewpoints to trout streams."

A photo of the view from Tory Rocks, with a map and site description,
is on the state Department of Environmental Protection's Green Acres
Web site at http://www.state.nj.us/dep/greenacres/feature2.htm. Tory
Rocks is highlighted as one of the latest moves to preserve a million
acres of open space statewide. The DEP says that including farms, the
effort has amassed more than 241,000 acres since May 1997.

The former landowner, Poultry Investors LLC, gained the property in a
1992 bankruptcy auction for $467,000. The sale price kept rising as
conservation groups made buyout offers that repeatedly came up short.
The final $1.1 million price tag was a bargain compared with other
current land sales in North Jersey, said Latincsics. Emerson Woods, a
19-acre parcel near the Oradell Reservoir in Bergen County, was
recently bought for open space for $7.8 million, he noted.

The Tory Tract is just upstream of the Wanaque Reservoir, North
Jersey's major water supply. And the parcel abuts a section of Norvin
Green State Forest, adding a key link in a Highlands conservation
greenway that extends along the Appalachian ridges on the Ringwood-
West Milford border and into Sterling Forest in Orange County, N.Y.

Renaming the site Torey Estates, developers repeatedly sought to
build single-family homes or town houses on the craggy tract. After a
series of contentious hearings and Planning Board denials, followed by
lawsuits, bankruptcy, and a revived housing proposal, the property was
purchased by the Passaic River Coalition.

The non-profit watershed preservation group, based in Basking Ridge,
negotiated a market-value deal and marshaled funds from its own
coffers, the state Green Acres program, Passaic County's open space
trust fund, the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, and the Victoria
Foundation.

"We're very pleased to be part of it," said Nancy Zimmerman, a
program officer for the Montclair-based foundation. The Victoria
Foundation previously provided funding to help New York and New Jersey
buy Sterling Forest, now a state park stretching from Ringwood into
Orange County.

At the recent Tory Tract celebration, Ringwood Mayor Allan Van Eck
gave official blessing to the campaign waged by activists who are
often on the other side of the political fence from the Republican-
dominated council.

While other speakers lauded the conservation buyout, Van Eck cited
the political support that enabled it to happen.

"This proves that the Ringwood Council is committed to preserving
open space," Van Eck said, alluding to the Borough Council's
endorsement of the buyout after opposing Green Acres projects
throughout most of the 1990s.

Ringwood officials long fumed that the borough's tax base was
unfairly hampered because two-thirds of the town is state park and
reservoir lands. The council reversed its stance last year, supporting
a Green Acres purchase of the Tory Tract and two other sites, after
owners of the two largest parcels applied for timber-cutting farmland
assessments, which pay minimal property taxes.

Conservation activists welcomed the official support. Some who had
felt tongue-lashed in past council debates pitting open space issues
against development felt vindicated by the mayor's remarks.

"It was quite an accomplishment," said Jon Berry, president of
Skylands CLEAN, a citizens group formed in 1987 with the goal of
saving the Tory Tract and similar sites from development.

"We had taken some heat over the years for being advocates of open
space," Berry said. But saving this site became so popular, "there
wasn't a single voice of opposition," he said in a tone of amazement.

* * *

# # #

Dennis W. Schvejda, Co-Conservation Chair
New Jersey Chapter Sierra Club
Web: http://sierraactivist.org
Join our Action Network & receive alerts:
http://www.actionnetwork.org/add.tcl?domain=SierraClubNJ

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POISONED CHILDREN

Date: 011106
From: "Dennis W. Schvejda" {dsch...@igc.org}

By John P. Martin, Star-Ledger Staff, 11/06/01

A toddler named Charlotte crawls across the hardwood floor of a two-
story white Victorian house in Westfield. The home is nestled on a
picturesque street in a town where the typical household income tops
$100,000.

Charlotte has a bright smile, wide eyes, curly brown locks - and lead
in her blood.

Not so much lead to be overtly dangerous, or even enough for her
parents, Karen Fountain and Tom Jardim, to notice a change in their
precocious 1-year-old. On this night, a smiling Charlotte shows off
her rainbow-colored Band-Aid to a visitor.

A test in May revealed that Charlotte's blood had 15 micrograms of
lead per deciliter, five micrograms above the level the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention says can cause health and developmental
problems in children.

Her parents were stunned.

Jardim, 35, is a lawyer and Fountain, 34, works as a community health
coordinator for Union County.

The lead most likely came from within their century-old house, the
one they bought from a widow three years ago because they love old
houses and dreamed of renovating it as time and their budget allowed.

The results were doubly shocking because the couple were diligent
about monitoring their children and their house after Charlotte's
sister, Cecille, now 3, registered a blood lead level of 9 micrograms
in 1999.

"We felt like we were taking every step we should be taking," Jardim
said. "Sometimes I think, gosh, maybe we have lead pipes somewhere and
just don't know it."

The Jardim case is neither unusual nor atypical. Lead poisonings
occurred in every county in New Jersey last year. Eighty-one of the
114 local health departments received at least one report of a child
with an elevated blood lead level, with lead-based paint almost always
the cause, health officials say.

More than a third of the housing statewide was built before 1950,
when lead was a premium ingredient in the finest paints. And more than
60 percent of the homes were built before 1970 , when lead was still
used in exterior paint.

In Union County alone, where Charlotte lives, blood lead levels of
higher than 10 micrograms per deciliter were found last year in about
560 children, according to state health department data. More than 120
topped 20 micrograms, the poisoning threshold that mandates an
investigation.

But experts believe there are hundreds or even thousands of New
Jersey children like Charlotte with undetected lead in their blood
because of one of the longtime, self-perpetuating fallacies of lead
poisoning: that it happens only in poor, blighted neighborhoods.

Tell that to the Rev. Carol Burnside. It took two years to clear the
lead in the blood of her daughter after the Episcopalian priest
renovated a room in her West Orange Township rectory.

Or to Cathy and Bob Beardsley, postal workers and parents of an
autistic, lead-poisoned daughter in middle-class Milltown. Or to Lisa
and Barry Friedman, a Westfield couple who learned only by sheer luck
that construction at their neighbors' home was funneling toxic amounts
of lead dust into their son's nursery.

Or to Kenneth Grisewood, who almost walked away from his Hunterdon
County house after facing a $44,500 abatement bill.

Or to Luke Schroeder, a suburban painter for three decades who now
spends more time working as a certified lead inspector.

"There's probably more children in suburbia who are lead-poisoned
than in the city of Newark," said Schroeder, a Short Hills painter who
remembers mixing lead paste and linseed oil into paints before coating
houses in the 1970s. "I can't imagine there's a kid in Short Hills or
Summit that hasn't been poisoned."

Usually they are poisoned after a family buys, renovates or expands
an old house, stripping or hiring someone to strip away years of
paint.

The task unleashes millions of dust particles. They coat the lawn or
floor, collect on windowsills or in corners where curious children
stick their fingers, leave their pacifiers or hide their favorite
toys. The scenario has become more prevalent in recent years as young
couples, buoyed by an economic boom, began taking over some of the
region's grand old neighborhoods.

"The first thing you think of is the child in an old apartment
chewing on paint chips," said Carla Hobbs, a health inspector in
Hunterdon County. "Out here, that's not what we see at all."

Few dispute the potential harm. Lead can alter the development of a
child's central nervous system, leaving invisible but lasting damage.

Repeated studies have conclusively linked even moderate levels of
lead poisoning to brain damage, deafness, hyperactivity, attention
deficit disorder and stunted growth. High levels can cause organ
damage, coma, even death.

Childhood lead-poisoning fatalities - not unusual in the 1950s -
declined dramatically since the government banned lead in paint and
gas, but the risk still exists. Just last year, a 2-year-old girl in
Manchester, N.H., died after eating lead-contaminated plaster in her
apartment.

But experts say that suburban parents too often don't comprehend the
risk, contractors fail to take precautions and pediatricians don't
test toddlers because tests are cumbersome and doctors dismiss lead
poisoning as an urban problem.

There's no proof that Schroeder's right, that lead poisoning is
rampant in the suburbs, but there's also little evidence that he's
wrong. The reason: Two-thirds of New Jersey children ages 2 and
under - 146,000 overall - were never tested last year, despite a law
mandating it.

To Roxanne Kendall, a professor of pediatrics at University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, lead poisoning is almost like
head lice. Both are silent, nearly invisible, and carry a certain
amount of shame. Parents want to hide it; doctors don't expect to see
it in their communities.

Kendall says cries for reform come only after the occasional tragedy.
It reminds her of the practice of sending canaries into coal mines to
check for deadly gas.

"We're using the children," Kendall said, "like they're birds."

'IT'S ONLY DUST'

If someone had asked Barry Friedman about lead poisoning six years
ago, the Westfield attorney would have vaguely recalled the old
television warnings about kids eating paint chips.

Then one Sunday morning in 1996, Friedman noticed a layer of fine
dust on his porch. He presumed it came from next door, where painters
had been sanding a neighbor's house.

"My first thoughts were, 'It's only dust,'" Friedman recalled.

He grabbed a broom and began sweeping. As he did, another neighbor, a
chemist, wandered across his street and proposed they test the dust
for lead.

The Friedmans found startling levels - as much as 22 times the
legally acceptable limit for lead - in their house.

"It was everywhere," Lisa Friedman said. "It was on the walls, it was
on the floor."

They discovered the highest levels in their 18-month-old son's
nursery, which faced the house being painted. The lead was in his
clothing, his toys, his blanket.

The boy's blood levels weren't elevated, his mother said.

"I caught it right when it happened," Lisa Friedman said.

For three weeks, the Friedmans abandoned their house and stayed with
a neighbor while specialists tested and cleaned their house. The tab
topped $15,000, Lisa Friedman said.

It also spurred her to action. She discovered that Westfield had no
regulations for contractors. Five years later, the borough now
requires painters to secure a permit before they begin sanding, and to
use HEPA vacuums, the dust collection machines and power-sander
attachments designed to capture 99 percent of all the particles such a
sanding might generate.

Maplewood Township was the first New Jersey municipality to pass such
a law, in 1996, and its health officer, Robert Roe, was praised this
year by federal regulators for his efforts.

Montclair, Princeton and South Orange are among those that have since
followed. But those communities constitute a minority, and just having
a law doesn't ensure compliance.

Gail Cheety, a senior environmental health specialist in Westfield,
said the borough issued 113 sanding permits this year, but that she
typically cites one or two painters each summer for violating the
ordinance. Often, she said, they'll claim ignorance.

The new rules in Maplewood were a boon to Kevin Sheridan, who ran a
fledgling painting business there when the regulations took effect.

"Everyone else boycotted Maplewood - they all left," he said.
Sheridan's company, Rutgers Painting, grew from two workers to about
40 and now spends nearly $30,000 each year on hepavacs, he said. Each
machine cost about $2,000, or more than 10 times the cost of a typical
vacuum.

The competition eventually returned, Sheridan said. He believes most
of his counterparts in the business have adapted to the new
regulations, but that at least one-quarter still cut corners.

"A lot of them try to get over on the ordinance - they sand on
Saturdays (or) they don't tell the homeowners about" the requirements,
Sheridan said.

Those are just the ones who choose to do business in communities with
sanding laws, Sheridan said. "In the towns that don't have ordinances,
nobody's using vacuums," he said.

Schroeder, who paints part time, said even those who have the
machines don't always use them. "It's more for show," he said.

Millburn Township rejected attempts to pass the sanding regulations
two years ago, after local painters complained it would send their
costs skyrocketing and drive their charges higher.

William Faitoute, the township's outgoing health officer, said he
would still cite dust-generating contractors for violating the
township's nuisance law, but acknowledged it became a cat-and-mouse
game with some each summer.

"We've had several painters in town who are pretty notorious,"
Faitoute said. "They have very little regard for the health of their
employees. And they just put on a mask and sand away."

A TOXIC RECTORY

The Rev. Burnside didn't hire a contractor. When she wanted to turn a
dusty basement room at the century-old rectory at St. Mark's Episcopal
Church in West Orange into a playroom for her 1-year-old daughter,
Kelsey, she stripped and painted the walls herself.

The pastor credits divine providence that her partner took Kelsey for
a walk in 1994 on a day when the township was offering free lead
screenings at a nearby fair.

"When (the results) came back high, it was shocking," Burnside said.
Kelsey's blood lead level eventually reached 33 micrograms, and the
pastor decided her daughter could no longer live with her in the
rectory. For three months, Kelsey stayed at a friend's house in
Bloomfield.

"It was extremely traumatic," said Burnside. "To move my family out
of the house, it was a nightmare."

It was also expensive. The abatement cost $40,000 and lasted more
than a year. Kelsey required regular blood tests for two more years,
until her lead dipped to acceptable levels, her mother said.

Burnside and her daughter moved to Baltimore in 1999. Only in the
last year, she said, has Kelsey stopped crying at the sight of a
doctor in a lab coat. Still, her mother wonders sometimes when Kelsey
cries or seems particularly crabby: Is that the lead?

Do-it-yourself homeowners like Burnside were the people Joe Ponessa
was targeting when he launched a three-year lead awareness project in
1997.

Ponessa, the housing and energy specialist at Rutgers University's
cooperative extension, placed outreach workers in Home Depots
statewide. They manned tables near the paint aisles in 22 stores to
educate customers and measure how much they knew.

The answer: not much.

"I went in (one store) for two hours and I think I came into contact
with 30 to 40 people who had absolutely no idea about the kinds of
projects they were getting into," said Steve Poset, a Camden County
health inspector who assisted in the program.

Ponessa said that when they canvassed some of the smaller paint
stores in Hunterdon County, a salesman asked: "What's the issue? We
stopped selling lead paint 10 or 15 years ago."

By the time the project ended last fall, Ponessa and his researchers
had connected with 800 employees and 2,200 customers. He said he sent
follow-up surveys to 400 of them. Only 10 percent replied, but nearly
all said they had learned something.

Others fault the physicians for failing to educate parents.
Schroeder, the lead consultant, said he routinely asks his suburban
clients if their children have been tested.

"And they say, 'No, the pediatrician didn't think it was an issue.'"

In May, members of the New Jersey Pediatric Lead Advisory Committee
met for the first time in five years, hoping to devise a plan to spur
their colleagues statewide to comply with testing laws.

"It involves taking a child who is 1 or 2 years old, putting him down
on the table and a struggle to get blood," said Antonia Ty, a
physician and longtime advocate on the issue of lead poisoning who
formed the committee. "And this is time and effort that is not
compensated."

Kendall, the professor who practices in a New Brunswick clinic, said
she was gung-ho to inform parents and test children when she became a
newly minted pediatrician in the 1980s. Then she joined a private
practice in Princeton and noticed her partners never mentioned the
topic. The same attitudes persist today, Kendall said.

"They automatically assume if you're working and have health
insurance then you can't live in an area with (lead) problems," she
said.

PAYING A PRICE

Cathy Beardsley knew nothing about lead poisoning, or anyone who had
it, when she was growing up in middle-class Milltown. "It's not that
you don't know what it is," Beardsley said, "but you only hear of it
in the projects or you see it on the news with these apartments with
the walls cracking."

That's not the kind of home Beardsley and her husband, Bob, bought in
1984 in Milltown. It was a Cape Cod with a detached garage and three
bedrooms, big enough for the couple, both postal workers, and the
three children they would have over the next few years.

In 1995, the Beardsleys were shocked to see their daughter Allison,
then 3, licking the walls in a room where they had removed the
wallpaper.

Then they discovered that lead paint tastes slightly sweet. "She
started biting the windowsills," Cathy Beardsley said. "You could see
the wood and the paint was just chipping."

Allison's lead blood level spiked as high as 37 micrograms, her
mother said.

Now she gets tested every six months. Even on her most recent test in
May, the girl registered a level of 17 micrograms of lead per
deciliter of blood.

Health inspectors worked for months to help the Beardsleys clear or
cover the lead in their house, a process that cost the family
thousands of dollars.

"If we could've afforded to move at that time we probably would
have," Beardsley said.

Ken Grisewood considered walking away from his family's three-bedroom
farmhouse home in Bloomsbury, Hunterdon County, after his daughter's
lead blood level tested at 31 micrograms in October 1996.

The abatement order he later received from the county health office
listed 13 locations on his property, including every bedroom and the
barn, even though Grisewood insisted that the problem occurred only
after he sanded his front porch as his daughter played in the yard.

Two contractors told him he wouldn't be able to afford the abatement.
A third estimated the job would cost $44,500.

"If we would have had to do the whole $44,500 we would have had to
walk away," said Grisewood, a 42-year-old landscape technician. "It
was an incredible nightmare and it was incredibly scary."

He pleaded with county inspectors, who agreed to let him complete the
work himself. Grisewood finished in February 2000, after spending
$15,000 and discovering how much power local health officials can
wield.

"They're trying to do the right thing in protecting children,"
Grisewood said, "but at the same time they can easily devastate an
entire family."

NEW RULES

Charlotte Fountain Jardim took a second blood test in July, within
two months of her first. This time she came back at 5 micrograms, an
acceptable level. Cecille, her sister, had dropped to 3 micrograms.
Charlotte was tested again two weeks ago, and her blood level remains
at 5.

The girls' parents believe the problems began when Charlotte's father
started refinishing a hallway banister and three staircase windows, a
job that stretched over months.

Jardim, a former mayor of Westfield seeking a seat in the Assembly,
said he used a mask and fans and tried to be meticulous about the
cleanup, but that even he felt dizzy from the fumes after hours of
sanding.

Since the lead scare, Jardim and Fountain have worked to remove or
cover most of the old lead-based paint in the house. Late this summer,
they hired contractors to tackle the aging porch. The way Jardim sees
it, all that remain are a few more doors and the upstairs linen
closet. "When we do that, we'll feel a lot better," he said.

And they have rules: When Jardim works on the house, his wife and
daughters spend the night with the girls' grandparents. Fountain said
she's become fanatical about keeping her daughters' hands clean.

Neither she nor her husband second-guesses their decision to buy the
house. But they still have moments of frustration, like one morning
last summer when Fountain opened her bedroom closet. There, on the
back wall, she could see cracks in the aging paint. "In our house,"
Fountain said, "it's just overwhelming."

It's also easy to become lax, she said. Her parents and in-laws
weren't distressed by Charlotte's test results. Even some of the
mothers in Charlotte's playgroup downplayed the news.

The girls seemed fine.

"You know lead is bad," Fountain said, as Charlotte crawled
contentedly on the floor a few feet away. "But it's so silent."

* * *

John P. Martin may be reached at (908) 429-9927 or a
jma...@starledger.com.
(c) 2001 The Star-Ledger

# # #

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LEAD: ALL-PURPOSE MATERIAL, ALL-AROUND PERIL

Date: 011106
From: "Dennis W. Schvejda" {dsch...@igc.org}

Russell Ben-ali, Star-Ledger Staff, 11/06/01

It Is not just peeling paint on the walls of a house that is the
source of lead poisoning.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that
nearly 1 million children ages 1 to 5 have elevated blood lead levels.
More than one-fifth of African-American children who live in houses
built before 1946 have elevated levels, according to the CDC.

Dangerous levels of lead have been detected in imported cosmetics and
candy and in lead-glazed pottery, ceramics and glassware. Lead has
been added to some imported foods and food supplements to provide a
yellow or orange food coloring or to increase weight.

And it can pose a risk to ammunition makers and gun enthusiasts who
practice in poorly ventilated indoor firing ranges.

Lead from the soil or leaded gasoline still used in some countries
can contaminate imported food and food products through the air, soil
and water. Before lead-based gas was banned in the United States, lead
from automobile emissions settled in grass, dirt and pavements, even
in playgrounds and parks built near busy roadways. Because lead never
breaks down, it may remain in those areas.

Construction workers and laborers who work with or around lead bring
it home on their clothing. Pets track it indoors from outside.

It can be found in some imported vinyl miniblinds in which it was
used to strengthen plastic. The material can deteriorate under
sunlight, releasing lead dust into the air.

Many folk remedies and herbal products contain lead. Some imported
candles contain lead in their wicks, causing it to become airborne
when the wick is ignited.

But most often, lead exposure comes from lead-based paint in houses
constructed before 1978.

The most common source of lead poisoning in children is dust from
deteriorated lead-based paint on walls and windowsills.

"It's not that the majority of children out there are eating potato-
sized chips of paint," said Lee Wasserman, head of the LEW Corporation
in Livingston, a certified lead-abatement firm. "It's more an issue of
dust, the little chips or dustings that fall on a horizontal surface
such as a floor.

"You got a small child who goes around crawling, they get the sticky
fingers, they go in the mouth and there's a migration of lead
poisoning."

At a Union County workshop on lead-safe construction practices,
Wasserman instructed several groups of contractors to divide the
contents of a packet of Sweet-n-Low, keeping one half and discarding
the other. Then he told them to do it again until they'd completed 15
divisions. Most could not go beyond 12 or 13 before the remainder
seemed invisible.

"That's how much lead it takes to poison a child," Wasserman said.

* * *

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THE BLOOD CAN BE CLEANSED, BUT THE DANGER ISN'T OVER

Date: 011106
From: "Dennis W. Schvejda" {dsch...@igc.org}

By Judy Peet, Star-Ledger Staff, 11/06/01

He was just a baby, barely 30 pounds, but it took four adults to hold
him down while a tube was forced down his nose and an intravenous
needle stuck into his tiny arm.

Then came the shots.

Every four hours. Big needles, inserted deep into his little thigh.
His screams still echo in his mother's head, keeping her awake at
night.

There were the side effects: fever, nausea, headaches.

There was the awful likelihood that other treatments lay in the
future and that none of this would undo damage already done.

It is called chelation, from the Latin word "claw." Chelates are
chemicals that bind with lead. They latch onto lead in the bloodstream
and draw it out through urine.

Fifty years ago, the only treatment for lead poisoning was British
Anti-Lewisite, a powerful drug that could be administered only
directly into muscle. It is traumatic, horribly painful and still used
- in combination with other drugs - in extreme cases of lead poisoning
where the immediate threat is convulsions, coma or death.

Two New Jersey toddlers underwent BAL therapy this year.

Both came from upper-middle-class homes where the signs of lead
hazards were not obvious. Both had been under doctors' care for vague
symptoms - fatigue, nausea or irritability - but had gone months
before they were tested for lead.

Both had blood lead levels approaching 100 micrograms per decileter
(ug/dL) - levels that rarely are seen these days, even in the most
decayed slums.

The injections are used only in the most extreme cases.

Oral chelation was approved in 1991 and is the common treatment for
childhood lead.

It is called succimer, a capsule that can be swallowed or emptied
into food such as applesauce. The side effects are much milder than
with BAL, but still include nausea and a sharp, rotten-egg smell that
oozes through the pores and taints the sweat.

Chelation is considered vital in elevated cases of lead poisoning,
particularly levels of 45 or above in children, in whom it causes
brain damage. Children can absorb and retain about five times more
lead than adults exposed to the same hazards.

Chelation can reduce the blood lead level by as much as half in three
to five days, a process that would naturally take the body months or
even years, doctors say.

But it is no panacea.

Chelation removes lead only from the blood; most of the lead in the
body is stored in bone and organs, where it does the most damage.

Combining other drugs with BAL has reduced some of its most serious
side effects, but young patients still risk kidney problems and severe
mineral deficiency.

Succimer is safer, but also increases lead absorption, making it
extremely dangerous if the child is exposed to lead during treatment.
That is why some doctors will use it only if the child is
hospitalized. Not all medical plans cover treatment in a hospital,
however.

Chelation cannot reverse damage already done, nor can it prevent any
further damage. Most lead-poisoned children experience repeated spikes
in lead blood level, even after treatment.

Recent studies cast further doubt on the value of chelation. Although
the research did not address acute lead poisoning - above 45 --it
found that lead therapy appears useless for children whose levels
range from 20 to 44 ug/dL.

The study found that although chelation did remove lead quicker, the
body compensated by releasing more from the bones, where it is stored.

The long-term study also found that children who received treatment
actually grew less and had slightly more behavioral problems than the
children who were not chelated.

"I will continue chelation, particularly in acute cases, until the
time that somebody tells me I'm wasting my time," said Steven Marcus
at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, one of the state's top lead
poisoning consultants.

"But we all know that the only way to save the children is to keep
them away from lead."

* * *

# # #

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HOW TO MINIMIZE LEAD DANGERS

Date: 011106
From: "Dennis W. Schvejda" {dsch...@igc.org}

Star-Ledger, 11/06/01

Experts agree that the best way to protect children from lead is
prevention:

- Test the children, test your house. Some municipalities will test
buildings on request. If not, a list of certified private
inspectors and abatement contractors can be obtained through the
New Jersey Department of Community Affairs or the state HUD office.

- Old chipping paint anywhere is suspect, and children seem to like
its taste. Immediately test any child found eating paint chips or
soil, since almost all soil in New Jersey has some level of lead
contamination.

- Low-fat diets with adequate iron and calcium can be vital in
helping young bodies block lead absorption, and an empty stomach
absorbs more lead than a full one.

- The most likely way a child is poisoned is hand to mouth. Wash
hands as often as possible, and definitely before eating and after
playing outside or on the floor. Dirt under fingernails can contain
lead.

- Lead dust is a hidden killer. Mop floors and walls and sponge down
windowsills with water and detergent. Vacuuming works only if the
machine is fitted with a HEPA - "high-efficiency particulate
arrestor" - filter. Wash toys, pacifiers and bottles often. Never
let children play in exposed dirt. Take off shoes and leave them at
the door.

- Water companies regularly test for lead, but old pipes in the house
may be contaminated. Let water run a few minutes before using it
and use only cold water for drinking and cooking.

- Keep children from hobbies that use lead and never allow them
around any painted surfaces that are being dry-sanded, power washed
or scraped. Never use a heat gun on paint that might contain lead.

- Remember that household pets, including birds, are also susceptible
to lead poisoning.

* * *

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