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Lead contamination. Kids with lots of energy who could be put to work solving this problem.
My idea: lets look at where the kids have elevated lead blood levels. It's likely coming from someplace they are playing. Lets have some rudimentary lab work done - not too costly. Then, lets get out there with some shovels and skim off the contaminated soil. (When I say 'lets', I mean, me too. I'm not too good to pick up a shovel.) Then, lets put down some clean fill. Fix the effing problem.
Children are being poisoned now. Lets do something to fix that now. Not wait for someone else, don't fix it next year, fix it now.
I've proposed something like this a few times, to people who say they care about poor kids getting poisoned. Interest level: zero. Once I get past my frustration at this institutional apathy, I begin to get the reason: they're lawyers and lobbyists. They want to get somebody else to do something. They'd never imagine picking up a shovel. I gather that that is beneath them. They all went to the same schools, all speak the same language, all belong to that social service subculture.
I once heard it said of some Conservative lawmaker that he'd give his lunch to a hungry kid on the street, but veto a school lunch program in Congess. Members of this subculture are just the opposite. Getting their hands dirty - unthinkable. Um, that's my lunch, kid.
This is naked class snobbery. Just listen to them: their kneejerk put downs of our country. That in itself is a class marker, demonstrative of a profound ignorance of history. Sorry, no time to listen to you: gotta dash off to another catered lunch so's I can defend the poor unwashed.
^^Do you have some specific ideas in mind? Lead screening is required under Medicaid and most private insurances pay for it as well. https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/be...ing/index.html "All children enrolled in Medicaid, regardless of whether coverage is funded through title XIX or XXI, are required to receive blood lead screening tests at ages 12 months and 24 months. In addition, any child between 24 and 72 months with no record of a previous blood lead screening test must receive one."
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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You will get into a lot of trouble if you are caught with a shovel at a site with contaminated soil. The EPA, state and local environmental agencies require that to be done by licensed contractors, and for the contaminated soil to be properly disposed of in a hazardous waste site. All of that is very costly. You can also be cited for trespassing for even having a lab go out and test without permission from the owners. If you suspect a location of having lead in the soil and kids are playing there, you should keep your kids away from it, and report it to the authorities. Better yet, report it to the investigative reporters at the local TV station, they love to expose that sort of thing.
You will get into a lot of trouble if you are caught with a shovel at a site with contaminated soil. The EPA, state and local environmental agencies require that to be done by licensed contractors, and for the contaminated soil to be properly disposed of in a hazardous waste site. All of that is very costly. You can also be cited for trespassing for even having a lab go out and test without permission from the owners. If you suspect a location of having lead in the soil and kids are playing there, you should keep your kids away from it, and report it to the authorities. Better yet, report it to the investigative reporters at the local TV station, they love to expose that sort of thing.
Yes, all very costly. They like it that way. The final result is that nothing happens at all. Yea, team. EPA doesn't even consider it necessary to clean up anything unless it's over 5,000 mg/kg. That is much too high, in my view.
An even better story: citizens prosecuted for cleaning up toxic soil. I'd be delighted to get arrested for something like that. Actually, I did something like this once. I vaulted a fence and sampled some water that was supposedly contaminated with hexchrome and found, as I suspected, that there was nothing in it. I tested it myself. I didn't get arrested, but nothing happened, either. Social service environmental "activist" JO's move with the speed of a snail with Alzheimers. Too busy attending catered lunches, I suppose.
The soil may not be hazardous waste. It might pass a TCLP. Then, it is just garbage. And there is no way of knowing whether it's contaminated at all without some kind of testing.
Last edited by WildCardSteve1; 02-02-2017 at 04:44 PM..
^^Do you have some specific ideas in mind? Lead screening is required under Medicaid and most private insurances pay for it as well. https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/be...ing/index.html "All children enrolled in Medicaid, regardless of whether coverage is funded through title XIX or XXI, are required to receive blood lead screening tests at ages 12 months and 24 months. In addition, any child between 24 and 72 months with no record of a previous blood lead screening test must receive one."
They should track these cases and correllate them with geographical area. I have a feeling that one would find clusters of EBL kids around busy highways and roads. Cars burning leaded gas drove along these roads for decades. The lead came out of the tail pipe as vaporized Pb(Cl)2, condensed out of the air, and presumably settled in the nearby soil. Many of these areas may be public domain.
Then, someone has to get off their behind and do something. Catered lunches don't cut it.
Last edited by WildCardSteve1; 02-02-2017 at 05:17 PM..
Actually, 5,000 mg/kg is the threshhold for removal. They consider containment/covering OK at over 2,000 mg/kg.
Covering is alright. It beats what they're doing now, which is nothing. Doing nothing seems to be a popular option. Of course, when one does nothing, one can't be blamed for anything.
There's another interesting technology involving a soil additive made from fish bones. The phosphorus in the bone meal ties up the lead, so that if it is ingested, it passes through the gut instead of being absorbed.
They should track these cases and correllate them with geographical area. I have a feeling that one would find clusters of EBL kids around busy highways and roads.
Then, someone has to get off their behind and do something.
You will get into a lot of trouble if you are caught with a shovel at a site with contaminated soil. The EPA, state and local environmental agencies require that to be done by licensed contractors, and for the contaminated soil to be properly disposed of in a hazardous waste site. All of that is very costly. You can also be cited for trespassing for even having a lab go out and test without permission from the owners. If you suspect a location of having lead in the soil and kids are playing there, you should keep your kids away from it, and report it to the authorities. Better yet, report it to the investigative reporters at the local TV station, they love to expose that sort of thing.
However what the big picture looks like now is most of the soil in this country is already so contaminated with fluoride and other toxic chemicals including growth hormones that lead is a small part of a much bigger problem that is being ignored-except of course for the few movies no one seems to take seriously enough.
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