Judge Orders Lead Testing In Schools

A judge ordered Tuesday that all Silver Valley schools be tested for lead dust, said an attorney representing 15 school districts in a lawsuit against the state.

Following testimony by former Wallace resident Tina Paddock and a pediatric lead health expert from New York, 4th District Court Judge Deborah Bail verbally ordered that those schools be tested for lead.

“She just indicated she wants to take immediate action with the Silver Valley problem,” Huntley said. “The attorney general and I will get together and make up an appropriate order for her to sign.”

Huntley said there was testimony that the superintendents of Wallace and Kellogg school districts were “ignoring the problem” and that no lead testing has been done inside the schools.

Greg Godwin, superintendent of the Kellogg School District, said the district will do whatever is necessary to meet the judge’s order.

“I’m going to get ahold of the judge’s ruling first of all,” Godwin said. “If there are mandates for us to do something, obviously we’ll do it.”

Jerry Cobb, the Panhandle Health District’s environmental health supervisor, said nothing can be done about the interior of a building until the exterior is clean, because lead dust moves inside from outside.

The exteriors of several schools in the Silver Valley have been tested for lead and four have been cleaned up, Cobb said.

“It surprises me they would say absolutely nothing has been done,” he said. “We’ve been tracking house dust over the past 10 years and what we’re seeing is house dust is coming down. There’s not much you can do inside a house until you get those exterior sources controlled.”