Lead Ruling Praised, Panned Some Silver Valley Residents Think Judge Went Too Far In Ordering Testing At Schools

Kids in Silver Valley schools learn the lessons of lead every year.

Public health nurses warn students about the dangers of the toxic metal with puppet shows, a dollhouse, even pencils coated with glow-in-the-dark stuff that show how easy it is to get potentially leaded dust from hand to mouth.

It’s no secret that a century of hard-rock mining and smelting still fouls schools with a film of lead dust.

But a dozen schools in the Silver Valley have never been tested to see how much lead dust lurks in hallways, cafeterias and classrooms.

That’s about to change.

A state judge last week ordered Silver Valley schools to test their buildings for lead. The still-unofficial order is getting mixed reviews.

Some valley residents celebrate the decision, saying it’s about time lead in schools got attention.

Jeanie Smith said she worries about students exposed to lead at Kellogg Middle School, which sits next to the Bunker Hill Superfund site’s 260-acre pile of mine tailings.

It’s irresponsible to not test schools regularly, said Smith, a Cataldo woman whose son is a Kellogg High School junior.

“Personally, I think something should be done every year,” Smith said. “My son’s in track. We’ve been down there while that stuff is blowing.”

But other residents said they’re satisfied with what schools are doing to protect kids.

“In my mind, these things are already being taken care of,” said Steve Morley, pastor of the Silver Valley Church of the Nazarene and parent of a Sunnyside Elementary second-grader and a 4-year-old.

There’s no need for more testing in the Kellogg School District, already helped by 10 years of Superfund cleanup, Morley said.

“The attention being paid is reasonable,” he said. “I don’t see parents going around wringing their hands.”

Idaho District Judge Deborah Bail last week heard four hours of testimony from a McMinnville, Ore., woman who once lived in Wallace, and from a New York lead expert. Tina Paddock, the McMinnville resident, tried unsuccessfully to get local school officials to add lead warnings in the student manual.

Then Bail stated her wishes in less than five minutes.

“They were all pretty aware of the situation there,” said Nicol Tyler, 4th District Court Clerk. “She just basically told them they needed to do testing.”

Testing is a no-brainer, said Barbara Miller, founder of the Silver Valley People’s Action Coalition.

Lead levels in children are dropping throughout the Coeur d’Alene River Basin, especially at Bunker Hill, as yard and other outdoor cleanups continue there and gain momentum outside the Superfund site.

“Now it’s time,” Miller said. “There’s no more excuses. It’s time to address the interiors.”

It could cost between $30,000 and $50,000 to test the valley’s schools, health district and federal officials estimated.

It’s unclear where the money for testing will come from.

But local health officials say they still worry more about lead in children’s homes and yards than in schools.

“You can’t say that the schools are the risk,” said Jerry Cobb of the Panhandle Health District. “That’s downplaying the rest.”

Forcing schools to test for lead is a waste of money, Cobb said: Studies show that buildings get recontaminated with lead six months after cleanup, until all surrounding lead is gone.

All schools in the valley conduct a regular cleaning schedule using wet mops and other techniques, Cobb said. They just have to be more vigilant than schools outside a lead-heavy mining district.

He adds a list of considerations: Kids spend six or eight hours a day in schools, and the rest at home. Lead is most dangerous to children until they’re 7. Most kids in school are older than that.

“That someone would go in and force the schools to take care of their children, it’s insulting,” Cobb said. “It just bothers me.”

Superintendents in the Silver Valley say they don’t mind submitting schools to testing, but they resent the implication that they’ve been cavalier about student safety.

“We have always placed the health of the children in the Kellogg School District as the highest priority,” said Greg Godwin, superintendent.

Four Kellogg schools - including the old Sunnyside elementary - are the only ones ever tested for interior lead. Samples were taken from classrooms at Kellogg High School, Kellogg Middle School, and Sunnyside and Pinehurst elementary schools. The levels of lead found there about 10 years ago were 1,040, 856, 773 and 319 parts per million, respectively.

They haven’t been tested since.

The federal housing safety threshold for lead is 100. The federal government’s cleanup goal for house dust across the Bunker Hill site is 500.

Kathy Joy, mother of three children in the Kellogg district, said school and health officials in the valley have aggressively addressed lead in schools.

“I don’t see it as a big issue here,” Joy said. “I think this whole lead issue has been under control here for a lot of years. There are groups of people that are making it their issue.”

Annual blood testing showed that kids inside the Superfund site averaged lead levels less than twice of the national average. But test results for children throughout the Coeur d’Alene River Basin were a bit higher.

Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency say their plan is to mix residential and school yard cleanups with education to reduce lead inside schools.

Over the past two years, contractors have replaced contaminated soil with clean dirt in playgrounds, ball fields and other outdoor areas at schools from Kellogg to Wallace. Pinehurst and Mullan schools are slated for cleanups this year, if lead levels prove high enough. Work at Kellogg Middle School is slated for 2002.

Meanwhile, Bail’s official order is expected to be signed next week. Details about the testing were not available.

Some wonder why it took so long.

Pinehurst resident Angie Porto moved to the valley a few years ago, but her uncle worked at Bunker Hill.

“A hundred years of mining, you can’t get away from that,” Porto said. “I have little nephews, they will be growing up in this valley. I’m concerned for their health.”