The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs spokeswoman, Tammori Petty, said in an email Friday that the state has not enforced a 2008 law that would prevent children from being exposed to lead poisoning from old lead-based paint.
“The legislation,” said Petty, “was signed into law in 2008 with no clear path to enforcement making implementation [of the law] difficult.”
“Registering one- and two-family rental housing units is a major undertaking since there is no readily available way to identify which one- and two-family properties are rentals and which were built before 1978 where there would be a potential lead poisoning risk,” said Petty.
Lead based paints were banned in 1978 but not all structures were required to remove the paint that was in place.
On January 4, 2008, then-Governor Corzine signed P.L. 2007, c. 251, into law which requires that all one- and two-family rental properties be registered with the Bureau of Housing Inspection and that they be maintained in a lead-safe condition.
A code on the DCA’s website states, “These new requirements will not take effect until the Department adopts implementing regulations. No registration or inspection of one- or two-family rental properties is required until such time as the regulations are adopted.”
Since 2000, around 225,000 cases of lead poisoning in children have been reported in the state, according to the Trenton based Isles Inc.
Lead poisoning can cause children to develop a number of issues including: learning disabilities, speech development problems, hearing loss, violent/aggressive behavior, reduced motor control and balance, severe developmental disabilities, coma, convulsions and death.
In all, 11 New Jersey cities and two counties have children with higher lead blood levels than in the in town of Flint, MI.
The cities are Atlantic City, East Orange, Elizabeth, Irvington, Jersey City, Newark, New Brunswick, Paterson, Plainfield, Trenton, and Passaic, plus Cumberland and Salem counties.
Because most of the state’s lead poisoning cases are attributed to paint rather than drinking water, children are at the highest risk of being poisoned – usually through ingestion of paint chips or inhalation of paint dust.
Registering housing units larger than two-bedrooms doesn’t seem to provide the state with the same set of challenges.
The DCA’s Bureau of Housing Inspection administers the New Jersey Hotel and Multiple Dwelling Law. The Bureau is responsible for ensuring that hotels and multiple-family buildings of three or more dwelling units operating within the state are properly maintained and do not pose a threat to the health, safety and welfare of their residents, nor the community in general.
The law requires that the Bureau conduct a five year cyclical inspection of these properties. The Bureau has been given the authority to enforce the regulations for hotels and multiple dwellings by issuing citations for the violation of these requirements.
Under this law, condos, cooperatives and mutual housing corporations fall within the definition of multiple dwellings. Those described as the owner are responsible for the registration of each building and for the correction of all cited violations.
Elyse Pivnick, Director of Environmental Health at Isles, Inc., said over the phone that aggressive housing inspections, inspections at the time a rental property’s tenants turnover or whenever a house is sold and fines for violations would all have success in reducing lead exposure.
Data from the DCA show that the number of children with elevated lead levels has fallen significantly while the number of children tested for lead has increased significantly.
“In New Jersey, childhood lead poisoning is a public health success story,” Petty said.
But advocates say the point is not that a lower percentage of children are getting lead poisoning, it’s that children are getting lead poisoning which is avoidable – and it’s know how to prevent it.
Pivnick says that the decades-old bans on leaded gasoline and paint did wonders for decreasing exposure to the overall population, but not everyone.
“It worked great in the suburbs,” she said, “but there are still stubborn pockets of lead exposure in inner cities that need help.”
In 2004, the state introduced the Lead Hazard Control Assistance Fund (LHCAF). The fund is used help in the removal of lead paint from older homes by offering deferred payment loans or grants. It also finances inspections, emergency relocations for affected families and public education about the risks of living in homes with lead-based paints.
The law that created the LHCAF collects tax revenues collected for every container of paint or other type of surface coating sold, totaling $7 million to $14 million a year.
A recent investigation by the Asbury Park Press revealed that since implementation of the law that created the LHCAF, the state has diverted more than $50 million into its general treasury instead of into the lead abatement fund as required by law.
The money has been used to used to balance budgets as state budgets can supersede laws requiring funding for various programs.
The same investigation noted that advocates say with $50 million, lead poisoning could be prevented in thousands of children.
Recent state legislation (S-1279) to add $10 million into the nearly depleted fund was not passed. A previous bill (S-2128) meant to accomplish the same thing died in the state Assembly.
Pivnick says that the losses of funding or siphoning of funds to balance budgets is the exact reason that the DCA can’t complete lead removal from trouble spots, as money is needed to fund the removal of lead paint.
Advocates are now calling for support of a new measure sponsored by Senator Shirley Turner (D-Mercer/Hunterdon) that would permit municipalities, rather than the state, to inspect one- and two-bedroom multi-family homes.
It could allow municipalities to conduct inspections on the types of homes that the DCA says the state has not been able find a way to enforce since 2008.