Kildee: Saginaw receives $3.1M lead paint-fighting grant

By Justin L. Engel | The Saginaw News SAGINAW 
 

— Saginaw County will receive $3.1 million in federal funds to eliminate lead-based paint hazards from “at least” 240 houses in the city of Saginaw.

Pamela Pugh Smith, Saginaw County Health Department’s community health improvement director, said her organization “exhausted quite a bit of energy in securing those funds” from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Smith said she was unable to release specifics about the initiative until she receives further confirmation from federal officials.

U.S. Rep. Dale E. Kildee, D-Flint, said he urged the federal department to grant the money.

“Lead can have devastating impacts on the development of young children, and its continued presence in homes, in our communities poses a serious health risk,” Kildee said in a statement.

“Lead paint was banned in 1978, but according to the 2000 census, 96.8 percent of homes in the city of Saginaw were built before 1979, meaning thousands of children in Saginaw could be at risk for exposure.”

Smith in March said that since the Environmental Protection Agency-backed Faith-Based Lead Poison Prevention Project began in Saginaw in 2007, reports of elevated blood lead levels of children tested younger than 6 years old showed a decrease from 2.1 percent in 2007 to 1.6 percent in 2009.

She said the number of children 1 and 2 years old who were tested for elevated blood lead levels in Saginaw increased from 1,103 in 2007 to 1,161 in 2009.

Lead-based paint in homes built before 1978 is the largest source of lead poisoning. In 1978, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission lowered the allowable lead content to 0.06 percent and banned paints with higher amounts from use in homes, children’s toys and household furniture. Paint producers started to remove lead during the 1950s and 1960s, but the government didn’t ban lead until the late 1970s.

Studies have shown that 9,100 housing units — or 37 percent of the city’s 24,800 homes built before 1978 — may have presented lead risks.

Officials say the primary way children are exposed to lead poisoning is through degradation of housing in urban communities.

Studies suggest lead poisoning can cause brain damage and impair mental functioning in children while also affecting fetal development.