AUGUSTA — In a letter to lawmakers this week, the director of the Maine Center for Disease Control said his agency would not move quickly to implement lower blood-lead standards. CDC Director Ken Albert said the state would pursue a months-long process to implement the new standards, which will trigger interventions for children who test […]
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Posted inMaine
Lawmakers say Maine DHHS dragging its feet on new lead standards
AUGUSTA — A bipartisan group of Lewiston-Auburn lawmakers is again asking the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to pick up the pace on implementing new lead-poisoning standards that were passed into law more than eight months ago. The change, which would see Maine conform with federal blood-lead levels for children, could set in […]
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Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Lewiston, Auburn take steps to keep lead out of water
Maximum Healthy Levels of Chemicals in Drinking Water | HealthGrove Auburn Water District Superintendent Sid Hazelton said his district and the Lewiston Water Department have hired engineers to study what they do to keep lead and other contaminants out of the drinking water supply. “Any lead people are seeing in their water does not come […]
Posted inMaine
Advocates to state: Get the lead out, quickly impose new standards
AUGUSTA — A new state lead-poisoning standard passed into law in 2015 is sitting in limbo, according to lawmakers and advocates who say Maine should move quickly on the change to better protect children from exposure to the neurotoxin. The change, based on legislation sponsored by Sen. Amy Volk, R-Scarborough, and Rep. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, would […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, sj-web
Experts: Lead poisoning affects students in Lewiston, Auburn
In Lewiston and Auburn schools, students are not screened for lead poisoning, administrators of both cities said. Whether a child is tested is between a child, the parents and their doctor, said Lewiston Assistant Superintendent Tom Jarvis and Auburn Superintendent Katy Grondin. “It’s no different than anything else,” Jarvis said. “If a child comes to […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Lewiston Somalis find lead in homes
In 2000 and 2001, Somali refugees poured into Lewiston. And while they found a home there, they also found trouble. “The initial crisis was getting people off the streets, off of homelessness, into homes,” said Fatuma Hussein, head of United Somali Women of Maine. “We didn’t know what we were getting into.” What the Somali […]
Posted inMaine
Lewiston-Auburn at ground zero in war on lead poisoning
On Nov. 15, 1999, Sen. Susan Collins called to order a special Senate committee meeting in Lewiston City Hall. The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Public Health had traveled to Maine to examine, Collins said, “the serious impact” of lead poisoning on children. At the time, childhood lead poisoning was on its way to becoming an […]
Posted inMaine
Maine expert says state ‘not doing enough’ to fight lead poisoning
In 2009, Marisa Nadeau and her young children moved into an apartment connected to the 200-year-old Hallowell home owned by Nadeau’s parents. The parents were renovating the rest of the old Federal house, but were meticulous about the work so Nadeau’s children wouldn’t be exposed to toxic dust from the centuries of lead paint on […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Maine
How to handle lead paint ‘on the job’
SABATTUS — It looked like any other house in need of work, but it wasn’t for Randy Trefethen and his team from Renovate Right Construction. Danger lurked on the job. The house was packed with lead paint, a poison that can damage the brain and organs when it gets into the bloodstream through lead dust […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Maine
Regulators rarely enforce law that protects homeowners from lead
Thousands of Maine children and hundreds of thousands across the country are being exposed to poisonous lead paint because a federal law designed to protect them is barely being enforced. The 2010 law, the “Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule,” requires that contractors must be trained in and follow lead-safe practices that prevent the spread […]