Idaho Experts Called to Address Global Lead Issue

Lead contamination is a global issue, not just a local or national one. While Superfund Straight Talk usually focuses on public health and environmental cleanup in the Silver Valley, this edition focuses on how lessons learned at the Bunker Hill Superfund site can benefit communities around the world. For more than 30 years in the Silver Valley, local, state, and federal agencies have worked with experts from TerraGraphics Environmental Engineering Inc. (TerraGraphics) to implement a cleanup that has significantly reduced blood lead levels in children in the area. So when a non-profit humanitarian organization named Blacksmith Institute responded to a rising death toll in Nigeria, Africa, due to lead poisoning, it called upon several local experts from TerraGraphics. Coeur d’Alene resident and TerraGraphics employee Dan McCracken recently shared his mission in Africa and how he witnessed universal concern for human health and welfare. Dan’s story takes place in Dareta, a remote farming village in Zamfara State, Nigeria, Africa. To supplement a meager farming income, Dareta villagers retrieved hundreds of sacks of ore from nearby mines and brought it back home to process and recover gold. Typically, women and children fine-ground the ore in the household grain-grinder, generating a fine powder with extremely high concentrations of lead carbonate. McCracken reports that his crew of six to eight TerraGraphics employees found lead levels registering from 30,000 to over 100,000 parts-per-million on floors of the homes. Blood lead levels were 200 to 300 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dL). Kids were having seizures and becoming unresponsive. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that blood lead levels as low as 10 (µg/dL) are associated with harmful effects on children’s learning and behavior. The United Nations reported that at least 400 children have died from lead poisoning in northern Nigeria this year. “Before we responded, villagers didn’t know why children were sick or dying,” McCracken explains. As help arrived, some children underwent chelation therapy, a medical treatment that reduces lead toxicity in the body, offered by the CDC and the French Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières). TerraGraphics carried out education and cleanup for the Blacksmith Institute under the direction of its technical expert, Dr. Ian von Lindern, a lead health expert who has been working on the Bunker Hill cleanup since the 1970s. The Idaho team worked in partnership with the State of Zamfara in Nigeria. Similar to the Bunker Hill Superfund cleanup, toxic soils are removed from homes in Dareta and taken to a repository outside the village. Homes of children receiving chelation therapy in Dareta are cleaned up first so children can return to clean homes. According to McCracken, Terragraphics was chosen to work with Blacksmith Institute in Africa because of its experience with contaminated sites all around the world, including the cleanup in the Silver Valley area. “The scale of the problems and the circumstances are obviously different [between Dareta and the Silver Valley],” said McCracken, “but many issues which must be addressed to complete the remediation are the same.” Similar issues include the priority placed on children’s health and the positive impact that contaminated soil cleanup and lead awareness can have on health. This year, National Lead Awareness Week took place in October. The CDC sponsors this event to further lead awareness and promote public health. Children in Idaho who are eligible for Medicaid may be reimbursed for the cost of lead screening (www. healthandwelfare.idaho.gov). Locally, the Kellogg Health Department offers free annual testing for kids and free confidential consultations for families with children or pregnant mothers with elevated blood lead levels. Call to ask if your family is eligible: (208) 783-0707. The CDC “Facts on Lead” reports that overall rates of childhood lead exposure in the U.S. are coming down because of comprehensive prevention strategies (www.cdc.gov).