The Grant family in Trenton is one of hundreds of thousands in New Jersey dealing with lead contamination in their environment.
For some families, the contamination is from paint. Others are exposed to lead in the soil around their home. Exposure to any amount of lead is extremely harmful, especially for children under the age of six.
“The damage is permanent, and it is profound: Brain impacts causing cognitive developmental delays, high blood pressure, nerve disorders. Children impacted by lead are 30% more likely to fail math and reading by third grade, they are seven times more likely to drop out of high school. They are six times more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system,” said Sean Jackson, CEO of Isles, Inc. Isles was at the Grant home, where four children, ages 8 to 15 live, to help clean up lead found around windows, doors, walls and trim.
Isles, a nonprofit community development and environmental organization, hosted a press conference last week with U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th) and leaders from Trenton to protest cuts to the CDC’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program and the National Asthma Control Program.
“The Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention] could lose 20% of its staff and $3 billion in health contracts, and laid off the entire staff at the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program as well as the National Asthma Control Program,” Jackson said.
“This loss of funding and the institutional knowledge associated with these firings will have significant consequences nationally and here in New Jersey. New Jersey gets about $1.2 million from the CDC through its lead control and asthma efforts,” said Bert Cooper, of Green & Healthy Homes Initiative.
Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora said, “Bonnie got the EPA in here to once and for all deal with the lead that was in the soil, whether it was the old abandoned pottery factories, the EPA willingly came in here and tested our parks, tested our schools and tested our homes. And now that they’ve cleaned up the parks and schools, they want to work on houses.”
Given the slashing of federal budgets, Watson Coleman said, “These cuts are strategic. These cuts are affecting those who have the least voice among us and who need all advocates and elected officials to stand up, push back and speak up.”
Lead remediation programs could also lose $4 million in state aid under the budget proposed by Gov. Phil Murphy. Jackson, who said he believes the state funding will be restored during the budgeting process, said federal support is needed too, to continue repairing homes like they are doing for the Grant family.
