Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann filed suit April 2 against Cleveland-based Sherwin-Williams and other paint and chemical companies that continued to make and sell lead-based paint decades after knowledge of its health hazards were well known.
The lawsuit states that the companies (E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., American Cyanamid Co., Armstrong Containers Inc., Atlantic Richfield Co., ConAgra Grocery Products Co., Cytec Industries Inc., Lyondell Chemical Co., Millennium Holdings LLC and NL Industries Inc.) are responsible for removing deteriorating lead paint from buildings and homes constructed mostly prior to 1950. Deteriorating paint has been blamed for brain damage and other health problems, including seizures and even death. Children under six are particularly vulnerable.
By the mid-1920s, it was understood that children exposed to lead were at risk. Even so, poisonous paint continued to be sold until 1978. Sherwin Williams continues to sell lead paint in Latin America where ACORN members are working to get the products banned.
The federal government banned lead paint in 1978, when 13.5 million children were found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Ohio ACORN members has been pushing Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson for months to go after Sherwin-Williams, holding forums and building community awareness and support for the issue, but he refused to pursue legal action. Cleveland’s City Council passed a resolution in March, calling on the mayor to consider litigation. More than 6,000 Cleveland children were diagnosed with lead poisoning in 2004 and more than 175,000 homes in Cleveland are presumed to have lead paint.
The lead problem in Akron, Ohio is extremely serious, according to the city’s Department of Urban and Planning Development. A November, 1992 Report for Project LEAP (Lead Education and Abatement Program) listed Akron among the top ten of 83 Midwestern cities for its percentage of high-risk housing and number of children found to exceed 10mg/dl in blood lead concentrations. An additional 18,000 children were at-risk for lead poisoning, the report said.
In 1999, Rhode Island was the first state to sue paint manufacturers. Last year, a jury there found three companies – Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries and Millennium Holdings – liable for creating a public nuisance. Public nuisance cases are pending in Milwaukee and Jersey’s Supreme Court.
ACORN members have been working to hold landlords accountable for their role in the lead poisoning crisis. Slum landlords who fail to keep their properties in good condition contribute to the problem. Landlords often prefer to evict a family rather than to do the necessary work of making apartments lead-free.
Maryland ACORN helped pass two important state laws, one preventing landlords from evicting tenants for failure to pay rent when the landlords are not in compliance with Maryland’s lead paint laws. Another law passed in 2005 lowered the blood lead level threshold at which landlords are required to pay for relocation and medical expenses for affected tenants.
Winning local and state lawsuits could generate millions of dollars to clean up older homes and keep children safe.
New Orleans ACORN also has a lead remediation program in collaboration with HUD to clean 170 homes in the next three months.
Click here to learn more about what ACORN is doing to fight Sherwin-Williams' lead-based paint poisoning.