Gov Urges State To Follow New Haven’s Lead On Lead

In a bright hallway of the recently abated Catholic Charities Child Development Center, Gov. Ned Lamont gathered with city leaders Thursday to urge the state legislature to bring statewide lead enforcement standards up to New Haven’s level.

At a press conference, Lamont promoted a bill that would lower the threshold of lead poisoning that triggers lead inspections and other interventions.

The state currently requires that local health departments intervene in cases where children have 20 micrograms per deciliter of lead in their bloodstreams. Lamont’s proposed bill, which is subject to a public hearing on March 7, would gradually lower that threshold to 5 micrograms per deciliter by 2025, meaning that health departments across the state would get involved at earlier stages of lead poisoning.

That shift in policy would tighten other Connecticut towns’ enforcement systems to match New Haven’s standards. The city has had a policy of investigating lead poisoning cases for children with more than 5 micrograms per deciliter of lead in their blood. (The stricter policy lapsed a few years, when the city reverted to statewide standards in the face of budget concerns. That prompted a lawsuit from the New Haven Legal Aid Association, leading the city reinstate the policy.)

The law would also require parents to be notified if their children have over 3.5 micrograms per deciliter of lead in their bloodstreams, compared to the current statewide levels of 10 micrograms per deciliter.

The new policy would match the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)‘s standards for lead poisoning. According to a release from the governor’s office, the CDC would have recommended lead inspections in the homes of 2,994 children in the state two years ago; the state’s current standards required inspections for only 120 of those kids.

Gov. Lamont, Mayor Justin Elicker, city Health Director Maritza Bond, and other officials touted New Haven’s progress on lead enforcement over the past two years at Thursday’s press conference, which took place at the Catholic Charities Child Development Center after the childcare provider worked with the Health Department to abate lead from its facilities.

“In New Haven, we have seen for many many years the impact that lead has on our young people,” Elicker said. ​“There’s a wealth of evidence that shows that children who are exposed to lead at a young age have a permanent impact on their health and their future.” 

Health Director Bond entered her role in early 2020 with the goal of overhauling the city’s lead response system. While the Health Department soon faced a new challenge of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, Bond said that lead enforcement remained a priority for her department. Over the last two years, the city has restructured its lead program to include 6 full-time lead inspector positions, bolstered outreach and education efforts, and a modernized data collection system.

Erin Nozetz, a local pediatrician and the chair of New Haven’s Lead Task Force, praised the city’s progress on lead. ​“I think the team they’ve built is a strong team in terms of sheer numbers,” she said after the press conference. ​“They are able to respond in a way that most towns do not.”

Nozetz noted that lead enforcement is a matter of racial justice. Black and Hispanic children are more likely to be poisoned by lead paint, while white children in Connecticut are disproportionately likely to be tested for lead levels in Connecticut, as the CT Mirror reported. New Haven has the highest number of lead-poisoned children in the state, according to the CT Mirror’s analysis of DPH data.

As the policymakers spoke one after the other, a classroom of 5‑year-olds huddled patiently in the hall with their teachers. 

“We’re doing this so that you know that you are safe,” Lamont told them.