lead

Cleveland plans nearly to double its voluntary lead paint inspections of rental properties this year, according to a presentation given to city council on Monday. Building and Housing Director Ayonna Blue Donald told council the city plans to inspect 1,875 rental units for lead paint dust, a 90 percent increase over the 985 inspections conducted last year.

Advocates of lead paint legislation say they’ll go to the ballot if Cleveland City Council doesn’t adopt a measure requiring that rental properties be made safe from lead. Leaders of Cleveland Lead Advocates for Safe Housing (CLASH) want the city to require landlords to make rental properties safe from lead paint by 2021. At a news conference Monday morning, group members said they plan to collect petition signatures to force council to address the issue.

Cleveland will announce a goal on Tuesday to bring down the rate of childhood lead poisoning and make the city “lead safe” by 2028, Council President Kevin Kelley said in an interview Monday afternoon. By 2028, Kelley said, the city aims for no children to register blood-lead levels above five micrograms per deciliter, which experts have considered a threshold for poisoning. He called the 10-year goal “aggressive but reasonable,” saying that the specific details of the city’s plan are still being worked out.

Children in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have a higher risk of lead exposure than other parts of the state, according to a report out of Case Western…

New requirements aim to keep Ohioans safe from lead contamination in their drinking water.The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency now requires each…

In its first year, Cleveland’s Rental Inspection Unit has completed 763 random tests for lead dust. Out of those inspections, the city issued 34 violations, with less than half of those properties now cleared of their lead hazard. Department of Building and Housing Director Ayonna Blue Donald testified before city council’s Development, Planning, and Sustainability Committee Tuesday, saying she wants three additional properties cleared by the end of the year. 11 appeals were filed and Donald said the remaining five violations are heading toward prosecution.

A partnership focused on tracking and treating elevated levels of lead in Cleveland children found 11 percent of those tested had levels higher than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s public action standard. One hundred and sixty students ages 3 to 6 in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District were tested in the spring and program directors are working to test an additional 20 students this month.

On a Monday morning, Mound Elementary School Nurse Angelique King walks kindergartener Darrell into a small classroom, sits with him at a knee-high table…

Cleaning up lead paint from contaminated homes takes a lot of money. By one estimate from the Cleveland Foundation, it could cost $50 million to make some of the city’s most distressed neighborhoods safe from the toxin. So who’s going to pay for that? Cuyahoga County and philanthropic leaders think private investors might be swayed to put up the cash. This financial model is called “pay for success,” and it’s becoming more popular with local governments.

The Erie County Health Department says results from a spring testing program are showing elevated lead levels in the blood of far more local children than…