Kids hold answers to lead questions

Lead exposure may be questionable in most of Idaho, but not in Shoshone County, where fallout from a lead smelter was measured in tons per square mile in the 1970s.

The Panhandle Health District has screened children annually for high levels of lead in their blood since 1974. Tested children averaged a level of 65 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood in 1974 – more than six times the current level of concern, which is 10. In 2002, 368 children up to 9 years old were screened. Two of those children had levels greater than 20, three fell between 15 and 20, and the rest had levels lower than 10.

“The goal was to have 95 percent of the kids tested under 10 (mg),” said Jerry Cobb, director of Shoshone County’s Panhandle Health District operations. “Testing two more years confirmed that we contained and improved considerably.”

The kids tested lived closest to the Superfund site. Since 1989, an inch of topsoil has been removed from most yards and public areas and replaced with uncontaminated dirt, reducing lead-contaminated dust in homes and contaminated dirt ingested by young children. Dropping lead levels in the children’s blood was the payoff for the work, Cobb said.

The health district considered the blood screening so important that it offered families $20 for each child they produced for testing. That incentive ended in that area two years ago as money tightened and blood results improved. Door-to-door testing also ended.

Now, the health district offers free blood screening for children and pregnant women nearest the Superfund site at its Kellogg clinic. Without incentives and door-to-door service, numbers have dropped off dramatically. Cobb said only 10 kids came in for screening last year.

Blood screening began in the rest of Shoshone County in 1996 for children up to 6 years old. In 1996, about 15 percent of kids screened had lead levels above 10, Cobb said. Last year, three of 82 children screened had levels higher than 10, and one of those was higher than 15.

Topsoil removal began last year at schools, public parks and yards in 300 homes. The area called the basin was contaminated with tailings and material carried in, but it wasn’t directly hit by the smelter fallout, Cobb said. While Panhandle Health won’t offer door-to-door service in the spread-out basin, it does pay $20 for each child screened.

“We pay the incentive because we have less information and less participation,” Cobb said.