Lead Chemical Action Plan

Welcome to the Department of Ecology’s Lead Chemical Action Plan (Lead CAP) website. On this website we will provide regular updates on the development of the Lead CAP. The Lead CAP is being jointly developed by the Department of Ecology (Ecology) and the Department of Health (DOH).

This website will contain the meeting dates, meeting locations, agendas, handouts and meeting summaries the Lead CAP Advisory Committee. This advisory committee, which consists of 18 members representing various stakeholder groups, will be meeting several times between July 2007 and January 2008 as Ecology and DOH move forward with the drafting and development of the Lead CAP.

Click here for information Advisory Committee meetings

Lead Related Articles and News Stories Submitted by Lead CAP Advisory Committee Members

The following articles and news stories were submitted by members to the Lead CAP External Advisory Committee for sharing with other Advisory Committee Members and with the public at large.

US consumer group finds more toys with lead

Dishes, toys, jewelry and backpacks that have not yet been recalled all carried "worrisome" levels of lead, the nonprofit Consumers Union said on Monday (30 October 2007).
Read the article at Planet Ark.
Read the article at Consumer Reports.

For many kids, lead threat is right in their own home

For the thousands of kids sickened by lead each year in the USA, it's not lead-laced trinkets and lead-painted toys from China that makes them sick. It's their own house.
USA Today story

Where does lead go? Into bones

Lead was once so pervasive that, even three decades after the government banned the chemical in paint and began phasing it out of gasoline, the country has still not shaken free of its legacy.
USA Today story

Has the Clean Air Act done more to fight crime than any other policy in American history?

New York Times Magazine, Oct. 21, 2007
That is the claim of a new environmental theory of criminal behavior. In the early 1990s, a surge in the number of teenagers threatened a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. But to the surprise of some experts, crime fell steadily instead. Many explanations have been offered in hindsight, including economic growth, the expansion of police forces, the rise of prison populations and the end of the crack epidemic. But no one knows exactly why crime declined so steeply...
New York Times story

Washington State Adult Blood Lead Registry Update
Safety & Health Assessment & Research for Prevention (SHARP)

SHARP Technical Report 38-15-2007 September 2007

The Washington State Blood Lead Registry was established in 1993. The results of all blood lead level (BLL) tests performed in Washington State are reported to the Washington State Department of Health (DOH), which then forwards adult results to the Safety & Health Assessment & Research for Prevention (SHARP) program at the Department of Labor and Industries (L&I).

This is the most recent update from the Department of Labor and Industries SHARP program: http://www.lni.wa.gov/Safety/Research/files/LeadUpdt2007.pdf

African American and Hispanic children are exposed to higher levels of lead than Caucasian children. Children of color also exhibit higher levels of asthma.
Coincidence? Maybe not, according to a new study by Gao, et al. entitled:

Lead effects on development and function of bone marrow-derived dendritic cells promote Th2 immune responses

The Pernicious Allure of Lead
By Natalie Angier, New York Times – August 21, 2007
The human body needs a diet enriched with many ingredients from the periodic table that sound less like food than like machine parts or spare change. We must have iron to capture oxygen, copper and chromium to absorb energy, cobalt to sheathe our nerves and zinc to help finger our genes. Other creatures demand the occasional sprinkling of tin, nickel, platinum, tungsten and even strontium.

But when it comes to lead, the 82nd item on Mendeleev’s menu of the elements, the universal minimum daily requirement is zero. As far as we know, neither we nor any known life form needs the slightest amount of lead to survive. And for humans….

Lead Prices Hit Record High Due to Lower Exports From China
By Interfax-China – June 26, 2007
Lead futures on the London Metal Exchange soared to an all-time high last Friday at $2,540 a tonne amid concerns that China, the world’s largest lead producer, will reduce it exports of refined lead, thus tightening the world’s supply.

The LME’s three-month lead futures price has…

Keep the Lead In
By Jack Lifton – June 29, 2007
Investors in natural resources need to keep the metal lead in their portfolios because every motor vehicle powered all or in part (hybrid) by an internal combustion engine (ICE) relies on the unique ability of modern lead-acid batteries to….

Contacts

Mike Gallagher
Ecology PBT Coordinator
Solid Waste & Financial Assistance Program
Department of Ecology
PO BOX 47600
Olympia, WA 98504-7600

P: (360) 407-6868
E: MGAL461@ecy.wa.gov

Holly Davies
Lead CAP Developer
Solid Waste & Financial Assistance Program
Department of Ecology
PO BOX 47600
Olympia, WA 98504-7600

P: (360) 407-7398
E: HDAV461@ecy.wa.gov