Public lauds proposed standard for lead

ST. LOUIS -- The Environmental Protection Agency got a scolding Thursday for waiting 30 years to propose a stricter health standard for airborne lead.

But the dozens who spoke here at a national hearing on the proposed standard still welcomed the change, with many urging the EPA to adopt one that's even stricter. The EPA also held a hearing Thursday in Baltimore.

Leslie Warden, who filed a 2004 federal lawsuit that forced the EPA to review the standard, said the agency's past inaction effectively "wrote off generations of Herculaneum children as the price for lead."

Herculaneum is where The Doe Run Co. converts lead ore to lead metal in the nation's only primary lead smelter. The Wardens' home, two blocks from the smelter, was among 100 that Doe Run bought out starting in 2002.

Jefferson County, where Herculaneum is located in eastern Missouri, is the only county in the U.S. that doesn't meet the existing standard for airborne lead.

Larry O'Leary, of Herculaneum, told the EPA panel that "cohabitating with a lead smelter" has meant avoiding the outdoors and constantly being aware of lead levels reported by air monitors in town. Trucks carrying lead concentrate came too close for comfort -- Herculaneum's downtown -- when a bridge outside of town washed out.

He urged averaging monthly, rather than quarterly, lead levels, "because I breathe more often than quarterly."

The EPA last month proposed lowering the allowable concentrations of lead in the air to a range of between 0.10 to 0.30 micrograms per cubic meter, compared with the current human health standard of 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter. That would cut allowable airborne lead concentrations by up to 93 percent from today's standard.

But some speakers, parroting some EPA and outside scientists, said it didn't go far enough.

"There is no immunization, no antidote, no personal action anyone can take, except to keep it out of living systems," said Kathleen Logan Smith, executive director of Missouri Coalition for the Environment.

If the air does not meet the new public health standard, states must find ways to reduce lead emissions.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources recently submitted to the EPA a new plan to curtail Doe Run's lead emissions. The year's first-quarter results, even with the improvements, were not encouraging, a fact Doe Run attributes to construction stirring up lead in the air.

Aaron Miller, Doe Run's environmental management coordinator, said the company is committed to producing a strategic metal in a nonpolluting environment.

He said the company will look to new lead-making and plant-cleaning technology to meet the more-stringent standard.

Leanne Tippett Mosby, a deputy director at DNR, said Missouri would need more monitors and other federal resources to identify polluters and develop compliance plans.

According to the EPA, lead emissions have dropped nearly 98 percent since 1980, in large part because of the phase-out of lead in gasoline.

But lead is still in the environment from such sources as smelters, iron and steel foundries, mines, mills, aviation gasoline and coal-burning power plants.

The lead standard has not been changed since its adoption in the Clean Air Act in 1978, even though the law said it should be reviewed every five years.

In 1990, the EPA reviewed the science on lead but opted not to change the standard. But since then, 6,000 studies on lead's health effects show that harm can occur at much lower levels than previously thought.

The EPA is under court order to complete its review of the federal standard by September. It's accepting comments through July 21.

Exposure to lead is associated with a broad range of health problems affecting the central nervous and cardiovascular systems, the kidneys and the immune system. Children are especially vulnerable. Exposure can affect IQ, learning, memory and behavior. Some studies have found a link to criminal behavior.er