AQMD to Test Children for Lead Levels in Their Blood : Health: Federally funded program will focus on youngsters living within a mile of a smelter in the City of Industry.
Concerned that a local smelter may be pumping unacceptable levels of lead into the air, the South Coast Air Quality Management District is launching a federally funded voluntary study to measure the lead level in the blood of some Hacienda Heights children.
In coming months, the county Health Department plans to test 150 children between the ages of 1 and 5 who live near the RSR Quemetco Inc. lead smelter in the City of Industry.
The first step is a community meeting scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Hillgrove Childcare Center in Hacienda Heights when health workers will explain the $148,500 study and answer questions.
Research indicates that children absorb and retain lead more readily than adults through contaminated air, water and dust. Exposure to lead can cause learning disabilities, reduced IQ, behavioral problems, nervous and reproductive system disorders and hypertension.
In 1991, the AQMD monitored air quality near Quemetco and found that the smelter exceeded federal and state air quality standards for lead.
The health study is “a necessary response to the threat posed by high lead levels discovered last year . . . in Industry,” Pat Leyden, the AQMD’s deputy executive director for stationary source compliance, said.
Bob Finn, Quemetco’s plant manager, said the company contested the AQMD findings in a letter last year but has not heard from the agency. Finn said the smelter--built in 1958 to extract lead from car batteries--is surrounded by air-monitoring equipment. And, according to the company’s own studies, Quemetco has not exceeded lead emission guidelines, he said.
“Of course I’m concerned, but I don’t think that we’re emitting unacceptable lead levels in the air around the facility,” Finn said.
He added that Quemetco regularly tests its 200 employees and has not found any whose blood exceeds 19 micrograms of lead per deciliter. Finn said the allowable limit for those who work with lead is 50 micrograms per deciliter.
Finn said the plant also annually tests the blood of workers’ families to determine whether the employees are bringing traces of lead home on their clothing and contaminating the household.
“We’ve never found a problem,” he said.
Officials in the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, who will help coordinate the survey, say they do not want to unduly alarm residents, but they believe the testing is a necessary precaution.
“We want to make sure there isn’t a danger to the youngsters,” Joyce Craig, an assistant superintendent, said. “As a parent, I would want to be sure my child is safe.”
The study targets children who live in a one-square-mile area bordered by the Pomona Freeway (60), Salt Lake Avenue, Turnbull Canyon Road and 7th Street.
The district has sent informational flyers home with children at Palm Elementary School and the Hillgrove Center, whose enrollment comes from the area to be surveyed.
Later this fall, health representatives will go door-to-door asking families to volunteer for the tests. In addition to testing the children’s blood, the survey will also examine air, dust and paint samples inside homes and soil and paint samples from outside.
The survey will also include a control group of 150 children from families in West Covina, chosen because that city has demographics, housing and traffic patterns similar to those in Hacienda Heights.
