As nationwide consideration focuses this week on lead poisoning and its quite a lot of reasons, NYLCV continues to prioritize this public well being disaster via advocacy and training. National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week might remaining for most effective seven days, however the League’s paintings to remove this all-to-preventable situation by no means stops.
Lead Pipes Right to Know Act
Most urgently, we’re calling on New Yorkers to achieve out to Gov. Kathy Hochul to inform her that public well being and transparency will have to be triumphant as we eagerly watch for her signature on the Lead Pipes Right to Know Act, which handed the state legislature in June.
This invoice, which is a common-sense and pivotal step against transparency and motion, mandates that knowledge relating to lead pipe places be made out there to the general public on-line. This will empower New Yorkers with the information of possible dangers of their spaces and the power to offer protection to themselves and their households.
It’s develop into all too transparent that there is not any secure degree of lead publicity and so we are hoping the governor will offer protection to New Yorkers via signing this NYLCV Scorecard invoice into regulation.
No Excuses, NYC
In a report released in July, the New York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning estimated that 1 in 5 New Yorkers could also be ingesting from lead provider traces (LSLs). The record, No Excuses, NYC: Replace Lead Drinking Water Pipes Now, co-authored via the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Fund, and Earthjustice, recognized the issue of LSLs within the City and really helpful pressing motion against their fast removing.
“New York City’s drinking water supply is the envy of many other cities. Yet, for all of the money we have invested to protect our watershed, our return on investment is greatly diminished with each lead service line that remains in the ground,” stated Joshua Klainberg, Senior Vice President for the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund.
The record garnered consideration in New York City and past, with City Limits, NY1, the Gothamist, and the Guardian all that includes the findings.
New York State’s School Drinking Water
Lead is a heavy steel and a identified neurotoxin, in particular damaging to the creating mind and apprehensive device of youngsters. There isn’t any secure degree of lead publicity or even small quantities can hurt a kid’s enlargement, habits, and skill to be told.
In 2016, New York State changed into the primary within the country to enact a regulation requiring all public colleges to check for, report back to the varsity group about, and fasten problems relating to lead in ingesting water in any respect retailers used for intake.
Last month, NYLCVEF equipped an replace at the program. Although the news used to be in large part sure, it additionally confirmed incomplete knowledge.
School ingesting water in New York State could also be getting cleaner because of laws that NYLCV and its allies advocated for and which went into impact on the finish of 2022. What is relating to, alternatively, is a declining degree of disclosure via public college districts to the Department of Health. Full and powerful reporting via public colleges is significant to the luck of this program going ahead.
Read our full update here at the state’s efforts to scale back lead at school ingesting water.
A Leader in Lead Poisoning Prevention is Honored
NYLCV Senior Vice President Josh Klainberg used to be venerated remaining week via WE ACT for Environmental Justice at their thirty fifth anniversary gala. In his 28 years with the League, Klainberg has demonstrated an unwavering dedication to protective the surroundings via politics and advancing public well being with a focal point on environmental justice. Over the previous decade, his number one non-electoral center of attention has been on chemical coverage reform in New York State and supporting efforts to do away with poisonous chemical substances from kids’s merchandise. Most prominently, he has performed a number one function within the a success marketing campaign to scale back lead in public college ingesting water and he’s recently engaged in a marketing campaign to take away lead provider traces in New York City and in municipalities around the state. Watch his acceptance speech here.
The More You Know
Finally, as we glance forward we invite you to sign up for us from 12:30 – 1:30 pm on October 31, when NYLCVEF and our companions on the New York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning will host an academic webinar at the risks of lead poisoning and the paintings we’re doing to stop it. RSVP right here.
Additional assets that will help you offer protection to you and your circle of relatives from lead poisoning are to be had from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, the New York State Department of Health, and the New York City Department of Health.