ENVIRO HEALTH UPDATE
From the Environmental Health Strategy Center
“Preventing harm where we live, work and play”
www.preventharm.org

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April 2008

Kid-Safe Product Bill Becomes Law!
Learning Opportunity - Chemicals, Health, and Leadership
Public Reading - Not Just a Pretty Face
Celebrate our Birthday!

We Did It - Kid-Safe Products Bill Becomes Law!

Thanks to overwhelming public support, the Maine Legislature enacted a hazard-based, comprehensive chemical policy to drive safer alternatives to dangerous chemicals in consumer products by an overwhelming margin (129-9 in House, 35-0 in Senate). Governor Baldacci has already signed the bill into law. Congratulations to the many, many people and organizations who worked to help overcome chemical industry opposition.

LD 2048, An Act to Protect Children’s Health and the Environment from Toxic Chemicals in Toys and Children’s Products (sponsored by House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree), takes several critical steps to protect Maine children.

Covers “children’s products” including both products intentionally marketed for children and any other consumer product containing a chemical of high concern that may expose or child or fetus through use or disposal of the product.
Requires Maine to publish a list of chemicals of high concern, which have been identified by an another government as dangerous to children based on specific criteria.
Requires Maine to name at least 2 chemicals of high concern (or groups of similar chemicals) as priority chemicals because are likely to expose Maine children or have been banned in another state.

Requires manufacturers or distributors must report to the state on which products they sell in the state contain a priority chemical, the number of units sold, the amount of the chemical and its purpose.

Allows Maine to restrict the sale of products that contain a priority chemical, if that product directly or indirectly exposes children and vulnerable populations to the priority chemical, and that one or more safer alternatives to the priority chemical are available at a comparable cost. The State can also prohibit the sale of a product containing a priority chemical if the manufacturer or distributor fails to comply with the reporting requirement.

Learn and Act

Are you confused by the alphabet soup of chemicals in everyday products that you’ve been reading and hearing about?

Are you wondering which products to buy and which to avoid?

Do you want to learn more about what Maine is doing to protect us from dangerous chemicals?

Do you want to let others know what’s going on and get them involved?

You’re not alone. Thousands of Mainers like you have the same questions, are trying to protect their families from unsafe chemicals in everyday products, and are working to fix our broken chemical safety system

On two Thursday evenings (May 8 and Thursday May 22), we’ll provide a two-part crash course in Portland on what you need to know to take action: in your home, at the store, and as a citizen.

Click here for more details and to sign up (space is limited), or use this link:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1305/t/2705/event/index.jsp?event_KEY=40827

Not Just a Pretty Face

Stacy Malkan’s new book - Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry - exposes the toxic truth about the products we smear on our bodies and slather in our hair. The book tells the inside story of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition of health and environmental groups working to eliminate toxic chemicals from everyday products.

Please join us for a reading and discussion.

Stacy Malkan at Longfellow Books, Portland
May 7th @ 7 p.m.

The Environmental Health Strategy Center is Turning Five!

Plan to join us in Portland on Friday, June 27 (location TBA) to help us celebrate.

————————————————————————————–Environmental Health Strategy Center, P.O. Box 2174, Augusta, ME, 04338

Posted: April 25th, 2008 under NEWS.
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State House Notes: It’s not over until …
By SUSAN COVER, Blethen Maine News Service

April 14, 2008

LEAD BILLS
The House and Senate gave final approval last week to two bills that seek to protect more Maine children from lead poisoning.

Both were inspired by personal experiences.

One bill, sponsored by House Speaker Glenn Cummings [LD 2218 An Act To Protect Children from Hazardous Lead-based Paint], D-Portland, allows money in the state’s lead-paint fund to be used for lead inspection and enforcement efforts. The state already imposes a fee of 25 cents per can on paint.

Also, the bill creates a voluntary registry of lead-safe properties.

Cummings became concerned about lead paint after his son was diagnosed with lead poisoning a few years ago.

The second bill [LD 2053 An Act To Ensure That Children’s Toys and Products Are Free of Lead], sponsored by Rep. Jill Conover, D-Oakland, means Maine now has the toughest lead standard for toys and children’s products in the nation.

Her bill, inspired by her young son, prohibits the manufacture, distribution and sale of children’s products that contain lead.

“I will forever refer to this as Matthew’s Law,” Conover said. “He was the inspiration for this bill.”

CHEC NOTE:

Another lead law passed this session:

LD 2172 “An Act To Protect Children from Lead Poisoning”
Sponsored by Representative Gary Connor

Emergency preamble. Whereas, acts and resolves of the Legislature do not become effective until 90 days after adjournment unless enacted as emergencies; and

Whereas, lead poisoning of the State’s children from environmental sources continues to pose a risk to their achieving their maximum developmental and educational potential; and

Whereas, knowledge of the blood lead level of each child prior to entry to kindergarten will allow for diagnosis and treatment of lead poisoning; and

Whereas, in the judgment of the Legislature, these facts create an emergency within the meaning of the Constitution of Maine and require the following legislation as immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety;

Thank you, Speaker Cummings, Representative Conover, and Representative Connor!!!

Posted: April 14th, 2008 under NEWS.
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P R O C L A M A T I O N

Recognizing
Healthy Homes and Gardens Season

* * * * *

WHEREAS: Lead poisoning and exposure to other toxic substances is an entirely preventable environmental disease potentially affecting all children and adults in Portland; and

WHEREAS: Children and adults can be exposed to lead and other toxic substances from a variety of common sources in and around their homes and gardens including contaminated paint, water and soil; and

WHEREAS: Children and adults can suffer long term health, learning and behavioral problems, and even death as a result of exposure to lead and other toxins; and

WHEREAS: Exposure to toxic substances is part of the root cause of over 25% of learning disabilities; and

WHEREAS: Toxic substances from our homes and gardens are damaging our environment and concentrating in our food chain and our children’s bodies; and

WHEREAS: Alternatives to toxic substances used in our homes and gardens are readily available; and

WHEREAS: May 27, 2007 marks the Centennial of Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, who warned of the environmental threats posed by pesticides and other toxins in our environment.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, THAT I, Nicholas M. Mavodones, Jr., Mayor of the City of Portland, Maine, and members of the Portland City Council do hereby declare, beginning on Earth Day, April 22, 2007 through the month of October, Healthy Homes and Gardens Season within the City of Portland.

Signed and sealed this 22nd day of April, 2007

_______________________________________
Nicholas M. Mavodones, Jr., Mayor
City of Portland, Maine

Posted: April 9th, 2008 under NEWS.
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Lead poisoning hits home (PPH-082207)
Groups are working to warn Portland and Lewiston residents about the dangers of lead in older houses.

By JOHN RICHARDSON Staff Writer

August 22, 2007

The news that some children’s toys from China contain toxic
lead was no surprise to Heather Curtis of Portland.

She’s become an expert on lead since her two daughters were
poisoned in 2000, and she avoids toys from China.

But it wasn’t toys that put the lead in the girls’ bodies. It was the
apartment they rented in an old Portland house.

Lead-contaminated dust from the windows and woodwork of the
old house had settled in the carpeting where her two young
daughters played. “I would vacuum it all the time and that would
just spread the dust,” she said.

Lead poisoning, though less of a threat today than in the 1970s,
when lead paint was banned, remains a far more common and
chronic health problem than many families realize, according to
Curtis and public health officials.

And the threat most often is the home itself.

Each year, about 200 Maine children are found to have levels of
lead in their blood that could affect their developing brains, said
MaryAnn Amrich, program manager for Maine’s Childhood Lead
Poisoning Prevention Program.

A decade ago, the annual number was 800 to 900 cases, she
said.

Lead poisoning can cause developmental problems, learning
disabilities and mental retardation. Some long-term studies have
suggested a link between lead exposure and problems such as
juvenile delinquency and urban crime.

It’s rare these days for a child to die from lead poisoning,
although it happened in New Hampshire in 2000. Two children
in one Portland family last year had lead levels so high, the toxin
had severe developmental effects, said Ronda Jones, project
assistant for Portland Lead Safe Housing Program.

Health experts say the recent publicity about recalls of lead-
tainted toys and bibs has helped draw attention to the
continuing problem of lead and other toxins in products and the
environment. And, they say, all sources of lead add up and
should be taken seriously.

But toys from China are much less likely to poison a child than
lead dust in the home, or even in the soil around the home.

The vast majority of cases in Maine are related to renovations in
old homes with lead paint, Amrich said. None has been linked to
contaminated toys.

The risks are higher in Maine, a state with some of the oldest
housing stock in the country. Homes built before 1950 contain
the most lead because the heavy metal was commonly and
liberally used in paint. About 30 percent of Maine homes are in
that category.

Homes built before 1978, the year lead paint was banned, are
likely to have some lead, especially on the windows and
woodwork. About 78 percent of the homes on the Portland
peninsula are believed to have some lead in them. Nationally,
25 percent of homes are believed to contain lead.

Although renovation is the quickest way to spread dust through
a house and lead to poisoning cases, even the repeated act of
opening and closing windows sheds some paint dust into a
home.

The state and the city of Portland have programs to screen or
monitor young children and provide financing to make old
homes “lead safe.”

In Portland, Jones periodically rushes a family out of a lead-
contaminated home and into a short-term lead-free apartment.

That emergency assistance might have spared the Curtis girls
serious long-term effects from the lead, she said.

Curtis had a vague notion of the danger of lead poisoning when
she and her children moved into a Portland apartment off
Woodford Street in 2000.

But only when she noticed that her toddler had chewed on a
windowsill did she think her family might be at risk.

The gnawing is a symptom of lead poisoning and she quickly
had her children tested.

Molly Curtis, then 3, had a level of 15 micrograms per deciliter,
a moderately high level. Emma Hogan, then 1, had a level of 55,
a severe case. “It was really scary,” said Curtis, who was then a
single mother.

The city moved the family out of the apartment without even
packing a suitcase.

Fortunately, the girls had only been in the apartment a short
while and the lead did not have time to affect their brains and
cause long-term developmental damage, Curtis said.

Emma, however, had to go through a long series of treatments
and blood screenings as the lead levels gradually declined.

“I had to have tests and it hurt,” she remembers. “Grandma had
to hold me down.”

Now Curtis and her husband, Ed Democracy, are leaders of the
Portland Tenants Union and spreading the word about lead.

The group is working with the Maine Environmental Health
Strategy Center and the United Somali Women of Maine on an
effort to warn Portland and Lewiston residents about the
dangers of lead in older homes.

Immigrant families from Somalia and other developing countries
have been found to be most susceptible because the children
sometimes arrive malnourished, health officials said.

Curtis and Democracy hope to knock on doors in downtown
Portland this fall as part of the effort. And they hope the recent
attention to lead in toys will make people more aware that the
threat still exists.

A new Maine law requires landlords to give tenants advanced
notice of renovations in older homes, and some property owners
are using financial aid from the city and state to remove lead
hazards.

Curtis and Democracy ultimately would like to see a citywide
registry of homes that contain lead so that buyers or tenants
don’t have to find out about the danger the way she did, when it
might be too late.

“What we need to do is really stop using kids as lead detectors,”
Curtis said.

Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791-6324 or at:

jrichardson@pressherald.com

Copyright © 2008 Blethen Maine Newspapers

Posted: April 9th, 2008 under NEWS.
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Volunteers take to streets to warn of lead paint risk (PPH-042107)

By JOHN RICHARDSON, Staff Writer

Saturday, April 21, 2007

The Portland Tenants Union and other groups will start a door-to-door campaign to warn residents about lead and other hazards in and around their apartments and homes.

“There’s a lot of groups working on the policy and legislative side,” said Ed Democracy, treasurer of the tenants union. “The need we saw was a grass-roots neighbor-to-neighbor community health network.”

Democracy and others announced the effort on Friday and said volunteers will start going door-to-door next weekend. The tenants union is working with the Environmental Health Strategy Center and the United Somali Women of Maine, which is leading a similar effort in Lewiston. The effort is called Healthy Homes and Gardens Season and is expected to continue into October.

Volunteers working in teams of two will knock on doors in neighborhoods around the Portland peninsula, where there are many apartments in many of the city’s older homes. Homes built before 1978, when lead paint was banned, can have levels of lead dust that can poison children.

Heather Curtis, Democracy’s wife and president of the tenants union, was living in an apartment in an old home in 2000 when she discovered that her two daughters had elevated levels of lead in their systems. Her younger daughter, then 1 year old, had extremely high levels, she said. Curtis now feels lucky to have tested the children before they showed signs of poisoning, she said.

“They tested the apartment and the apartment had really high levels,” she said. Lead dust had collected in the carpet of the room where her kids played.

Many residents don’t know about lead and other hazards in their homes, and many landlords don’t know there are grants available to control the hazards, according to Curtis and other advocates. Volunteers will survey residents and provide information about testing for lead and reducing risks of exposure to lead and other toxins.

Knocking on doors in downtown neighborhoods “is really getting information to places where it might not have reached and where there is often lead in the house,” said Amanda Sears, associate director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, a non-profit organization in Bangor.

While lead is considered a common and immediate threat, the door-to-door effort also is intended to raise awareness about household hazards such as pesticides used on lawns and gardens. The groups said they believe chemical exposure contributes to learning disabilities in Maine children and adults.

Portland’s City Council issued a proclamation on Friday in support of Healthy Homes and Gardens Season.

The proclamation states that “toxic substances from our homes and gardens are damaging our environment and concentrating in our food chain and our children’s bodies,” and that “alternatives to toxic substances used in our homes and gardens are readily available.”

Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791-6324, or at: jrichardson@pressherald.com

Posted: April 9th, 2008 under NEWS.
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The FORECASTER - PORTLAND EDITION
January 18, 2006 www.theforecaster.net

City to beef up inspections of apartment buildings
By Kate Bucklin
Landlords will be assessed new fees

PORTLAND – The city will add four employees this summer whose task will be making sure apartment buildings meet safety codes.

Mike Nugent, director of the city Inspections Division, said a draft of the Multi-Family Certification Program should be complete by Feb. 7, when the City Council Housing Committee next meets. Nugent said the program will be fee-based. While the fees have not been decided, he said it would probably cost around $50 for a license fee, and $10 per unit.

The city is exploring a component to the new program that would reward good landlords

Buildings with three or more apartments would be subject to inspections every five years. Funding and staff constraints have limited inspections for the past several years; the Inspections Division now checks buildings only if a complaint is lodged or if the landlord receives general assistance funding.

“We plan to hire additional staff for a proactive housing inspection program,” Nugent said.

The hope is to implement the new program in July, at the start of the next budget cycle. The Inspections Division plans on hiring two field inspectors, a field supervisor and a support staffer. Nugent said the Fire Department would also be involved in some capacity.

“Many cities create a fee structure to fund their inspection programs,” Nugent explained. He said city staff examined the programs in other cities when developing the Portland program.

Portland has roughly 16,000 dwelling units and the inspectors would follow Chapter 6 housing codes, which outline what is considered unsafe.

The city receives about 120 general tenant complaints each year, not including about a dozen calls reporting infestations. There are 400 general assistance units inspected each year.

“There was a time we were getting 400 or 500 rat complaints a year,” Nugent said, adding that those days are long over.

A group of tenant rights advocates and landlords were scheduled to meet with Nugent this week to go over the draft before it is submitted to the Housing Committee.

Landlords in Portland have mixed feelings about the new program. Nate Kimble, the owner of a four-unit building in the West End and a former apartment building manager, said while the fee seemed relatively reasonable, he does not believe the city had an abundance of housing quality issues. He added that he already pays the city more than $5,000 a year in property taxes.

“It’s quality mandated and sort of self-governed,” Kimble said of rental housing. “People pay more for a nicer place.”

Heather Curtis, president of Portland Tenants Union, said her group had not heard about the city’s planned program, but she was pleased – despite the possibility that tenants may have to absorb the fees as higher rents.

“We’ve been calling for this kind of thing for a long time,” Curtis said. “I’m excited to hear about this.”

Curtis said the union advocates for tenants and has in the past gone on city inspections to apartment buildings. She said some of the most common issues are lead paint, mold and rodent droppings. The union has also received reports of leaking oil tanks and various ongoing and unfixed problems.

“We have seen more than one open sewage line in basements,” she said.

Ed Democracy, treasurer of the tenants union, said the program could help the city develop a list of landlord contacts – something that doesn’t exist now. He also said the union will be actively involved in developing the program.

Nugent said while most landlords maintain their buildings and generally solve problems brought to their attention, this new inspection service will improve the quality of life in Portland.

“We do have wonderful housing, that’s why this is such a desirable place to live,” Nugent said.

Kate Bucklin can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 106 or kbucklin@theforecaster.net

Posted: April 9th, 2008 under NEWS.
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