Story Archives of 'lead paint'

Commissioner Nick Toumpas says budget cuts and layoffs make current law too expensive. The rollback proposal comes during national lead poisoning prevention week.

Shoppers have been hearing reports of over 70 safety recalls that have removed 25 million toys from store shelves nationwide, and both shoppers and toy shop owners are paying attention.

Manchester mayor Frank Guinta says he now opposes a plan to tighten state lead paint standards. The measure is slated for a State Senate vote later this week.

It has been banned for almost thirty years and yet still poisons more than two-hundred Granite State children a year, sometimes with devastating long-term effects. As part of NHPR’s series on lead poisoning this week – we’ll examine its causes, costs and consequences...and get your stories too. Laura's guests are Joe Nelson of Nelson Real Estate and President of the Seacoast Chapter of the NH Property Owners Association; Bethany Fleishman, Outreach Assistant for Dartmouth's Toxic Metals Research Program, Collaborator with Manchester's Lead Poisoning Prevention Coalition and Former Participant in the "Get the Lead Out Of Vermont" task force and Betsi DeVries, Democratic Senator from Manchester, member of the Governor's Task Force on Lead Paint Poisoning and sponsor of a bill this session to expand inspections and help property owners get rid of lead paint. We'll also hear from Sandra Roseberry, who lived in a house in the early 1980s with lead paint that affected her three children. This Exchange program is part of a special NHPR series on lead paint.

Yesterday we heard about a recommendation from a state task force to reduce the amount of lead in a child's blood that would trigger state action. The proposal under discussion would cut it in half to bring it in line with federal standards.

The task force had one other major recommendation -- if the state orders lead abatement in one unit in an apartment building, every other unit in the building would be tested too.

Today NHPR's Josh Rogers reports on how property owners see toughening state law.