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5.14.2001
By
PETER B. LORD
Journal Environment Writer
CRANSTON
-- They were sharing the Rhode Island dream.
Jack and Kristen Field married in 1994 and a year later bought a rundown
blue Colonial with lots of potential in the city's Edgewood neighborhood.
Superficially, the house was a mess. Carpets and wallpaper were tattered;
it needed new electrical wiring, and the windows had to be replaced along
with the shingles.
But the house, at 55 Marion Ave., cost only $103,000 and was structurally
sound with beautiful woodwork and an open porch facing a good neighborhood.
It was close to relatives as well.
Jack was handy and started fixing up the place right away. He did the
work in spurts, whenever he could take time from his job coordinating
equipment for the emergency room at Rhode Island Hospital. Kristen, a
nurse, held a variety of nursing jobs and trained other nurses. They started
a family. First there was Kaileen, and then Kerrin.
The house was looking better and better. The girls were doing well.
Until Kerrin went in for her one-year checkup.
A state-mandated blood test in 1999 determined she was lead poisoned.
For the next two years, Jack and Kristen's lives churned with worry, exasperation,
and fear as they struggled to get the lead removed from their daughter's
body, and their house.
They made dozens of visits to doctors, spent thousands of dollars on their
house, and fretted every day.
"It's been long. It's been frustrating," Kristen said in a recent interview.
"But it was worth it." Kaileen never developed a lead problem, and Kerrin's
lead levels have been dropping steadily.
"We went above and beyond. I've replaced nearly the whole house," said
Jack. "I'm just very thankful that nothing has happened to my two girls."
The Fields were surprised -- and embarrassed -- by
the lead-poisoning incident because both are trained medical professionals
. Yet they never gave it a thought as they worked on their
house. Now they are eager to spread the word about the dangers so others
don't make the same mistakes.
LEAD PROBLEMS are worse in the oldest, poorest neighborhoods in
the state. But lead, a metal added to paint to improve its durability,
presents a threat in nearly any house built before 1978, the year it was
banned from house paint.
Jack and Kristen Field took advantage of some of the programs available
to homeowners, financed with municipal, state, and federal dollars, to
treat their daughter and to help them eliminate lead from their house.
They appreciate the government's help.
But others have criticized most of the efforts for being too little or
too late.
In Rhode Island in just the last seven years, the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development has spent nearly $25 million on loans
to clean up lead-poisoned housing and for lead-hazard education. HUD officials
believe they have spent more per capita on Rhode Island than any other
state in the country.
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LEAD
(led) n. 1. Symbol Pb
A dense metallic element used in solder, radiation shields,
paints, and antiknock compounds.
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In the last two years alone, the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance
Corporation has received $3 million; Providence, $4 million, and Pawtucket,
$2.9 million.
But Richard H. Godfrey Jr., head of the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage
Finance Corporation, which distributes much of the HUD money, says that's
not nearly enough.
"Maybe 300,000 units in Rhode Island have hazards," says Godfrey. "Probably
30,000 are high risk. At $10,000 a unit, you're talking about billions
of dollars. Right now, we're just touching the top of the iceberg, scraping
the snow off."
Since 1994, RIHMFC has loaned out $9.7 million to homeowners in 29 communities
to abate lead hazards. That money repaired 171 housing units (houses or
apartments) where children were lead poisoned, and another 727 housing
units where property owners wanted to make their buildings lead safe.
Godfrey says lead poisoning affects families of professionals as well
as the poor.
"I've had several friends who hired contractors for scraping and painting,
and then their kids got lead poisoned," Godfrey said. "One's cat was sick.
His vet figured he's lead poisoned. Two were lawyers. The fact that they
were lowering their kids' IQs was appalling to them."
The Rhode Island Health Department has a mandatory inspection program
that goes into play every time a child is found significantly poisoned
-- a blood-lead level of at least 20 micrograms of lead per deciliter
of blood. It sends inspectors to the child's house to look for lead hazards.
The department can order lead problems cleaned up and can refer those
who violate its orders to the attorney general's office for prosecution.
But critics say that instead of initiating a program to inspect all older
houses, the state waits until children are lead poisoned before it takes
action. They say it uses children to detect toxins, much as miners once
used canaries to signal the buildup of dangerous gases in mineshafts.
At the same time, the Health Department has been trying to encourage homeowners
to fix up their properties before a child gets sick. But Al Cabral, principal
industrial hygienist in the Office of Occupational and Radiological Health,
concedes that few homeowners are acting on their own. One problem is there
are few contractors licensed to do lead-abatement work, and they tend
to charge more.
Now the Health Department is planning to ease its regulations, allowing
homeowners who aren't facing abatement orders to hire contractors with
minimal training to work on their houses. Until now, lead-paint contractors
had to pass a 40-hour course; under the new rules only an 8-hour course
would be mandated.
The department held one hearing on the proposal this winter and drew several
city and housing authority officials who offered few objections. The plan
drew mixed reaction at a recent public hearing. Some said the new rules
could cause more poisonings.
IT WAS DURING the spring of 1998 that Jack Field stripped the clapboards
and shingles off the side of the house. A few months later, Kerrin was
born.
From the beginning, Kerrin was different from her sister. She put everything
she came across into her mouth, Kristen says.
When Kerrin's pediatrician discovered she was lead poisoned, Jack immediately
stopped working on the house. The pediatrician referred the family to
the St. Joseph Hospital lead clinic.
That's where Dr. James "Jeff" Brown and others give specialized care to
lead-poisoned children. Kerrin's blood-lead level was in the mid-20s --
significantly poisoned, but not enough to require hospitalization.
Dr. Brown prescribed iron medication, and recommended that the Fields
give Kerrin a diet with lots of protein and vegetables. A good diet helps
prevent the body from absorbing lead.
"We had to trick her to drink the iron," Kristen said.
Because Kerrin's blood-lead level registered above 20 ug/dl, the Health
Department was required to inspect the Fields' house.
The inspector spent four hours at the house. He took paint samples from
every wall, from the front and back porches, and the doorways and windows.
He took a sample of tap water, and the soil.
He found lots of lead. The porches were the worst. The door thresholds
were bad, too.
The Health Department allowed the Fields to do some of the cleanup work.
But they also referred them to RIHMFC, which provides loans for homeowners
who need to do big lead cleanups. The RIHMFC counselors offered the Fields
a videotape about lead poisoning in the home.
"It was about a family working on their house," Kristen recalled. "Their
baby was acting sick all the time. It scared the living daylights out
of me."
RIHMFC loaned the Fields about $14,000, financed by the HUD grant. The
loan has a nominal interest rate of 3 percent, but they don't have to
begin repaying it until they sell their house.
For a child to remain in a contaminated house, all sources of lead must
be removed or covered up. (In Massachusetts, the regulations are stricter:
lead must be removed. Under Rhode Island law, it is sufficient to make
a house lead safe, not necessarily lead free.)
Still, there was plenty of work to do at the Fields' house.
There were elevated lead levels in the water. Because many old water pipes
were soldered with lead, those pipes are always suspect. The Fields had
the service line from the street replaced. They also installed a filter
at the tap.
They hired a contractor, Gerald W. Potter Sr., of Pawtucket. During the
next few months, he put vinyl siding on the garage, installed a new garage
door, re-shingled the back of the house, replaced the second-floor deck
and the entire front porch. He put vinyl over the window casings and latex
paint on every surface that wasn't replaced.
As with many contractors, the work went in spurts, stopping for weather
and other problems.
"We started in May, and we're still not done," Kristen said last fall.
"It's been long, and it's been frustrating."
Five contractors looked at her house, but only Potter offered a bid. Kristen
said she likes him personally and has high regard for his work. But she
wonders why the job didn't move faster.
Potter, reached at his home on a rainy day several weeks later, said his
problem is simple -- he can't find or keep help.
"There's a big difference between lead work and regular carpentry," Potter
said. "You have to wear a respirator all the time, and Tyvek suits [protective
overalls made with polyethylene]. We have to send [the workers] for physicals
and keep up the blood work. Everything has to be done by hand. You can't
use power sanders. You have to hand-scrape everything.
"At one point in time, I took a whole graduating class from a trade school.
Not one lasted more than a month. They just can't handle the work.
"I have an ad in the paper all the time, looking for vinyl siders. I can't
get any."
Potter said he loses a lot of jobs because he bids too high, but he needs
more income because he pays his laborers more and also pays to train them
and monitor their health.
"The state hoped to have 900 licensed contractors, but they only have
about 70 signed up," Potter said. And he believes only a handful of those
are active.
The good thing for him is there is so much lead work, he never lays people
off. When the weather gets bad, he simply moves his crews inside.
AS A WAY of paying back those who helped her, and to warn others,
Kristen has done some volunteer work with Childhood Lead Action Project,
a Providence-based educational and advocacy group.
She addresses groups of parents and has spoken at news conferences.
"I was a wreck," she said. "I can teach nurses, but speaking in front
of a bigger group . . ."
Sometimes CLAP has criticized RIHMFC and the Health Department for lack
of effort, but Kristen refuses to go along with that. "We never had a
bad experience with them."
Their only regret is over the state's policy requiring them to simply
paint over the lead rather than remove it. "What happens in four years
when it chips?" asks Jack. So in many spots throughout their home, they've
replaced lead-painted wood at their own expense.
"Our thoughts were to replace everything. We didn't want any existing
[lead] paint at all," Jack said. "So when we sell the house, we can say
it's abated."
They've also warned neighbors when they've spotted them initiating remodeling
projects.
"My neighbor was sanding -- he's got kids. It's an older neighborhood.
People don't realize what they can do to their kids. But now I realize
it's everywhere."
The Fields have spent their own money to go beyond the necessary repairs
and improve the appearance of their house. Instead of pressure-treated
lumber, they used mahogany for their front porch.
During Kerrin's last visit to the doctor, a test showed her blood-lead
level was down to 11 micrograms per deciliter, just above the poison level
of 10. She appears to be developing normally.
Kristen said recently there's still a little bit more work to do on the
house.
Jack has to touch up a few places inside. Potter needs to finish a couple
of jobs on the outside.
When they get the work done, that will close out their lead saga -- two
years of trouble. And the Fields can move on.
They hope to get a place in Narragansett one day. Down by the beach.
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