Lead Lab, Inc.

Lead Lab, Inc is a non-profit organization dedicated to conducting research and educating the public on issues of lead contamination in the city of New Orleans and southern Louisiana. Lead Lab, Inc’s activities include: research activities to reduce lead exposure by children; support and operation of a laboratory facility; educate parents, caretakers and the community via live presentations about preventing exposure to toxins; and pursue progressive actions to prevent childhood exposure to environmental toxins.

Its mission is to promote a more environmentally just, healthy and humane society.

Startle Point:
Howard Meilke, longtime toxicologist, has dedicated much of his life to researching the lead contamination of urban environments. After doing this kind of research in several cities in the United States, Meilke was working in Minnesota to create a map that showed the levels of lead contamination in the soils. One day while Meilke and his family were living in Minnesota, his three-year old daughter, Beverly, went cross-eyed. During the work-up for the eye operation that followed, it was noticed that the levels of lead in Beverly’s blood were abnormally high. She had lead poisoning.

“She was the startle point for me,” says Meilke, “my own child is getting exposed.” He then followed his daughter around for days testing the levels of lead in places she frequented and played. He discovered that Beverly’s childcare center was highly contaminated with lead, specifically the soils in the playground.

Regulation:
In the early 1980s, the Reagan Administration was pursuing deregulation in many environmental areas, including leaded gasoline. Motivated by the experience with his daughter and with a revitalized sensed of urgency, Meilke testified before the Senate, presenting his research on the importance of removing lead form gasoline. His was one of the testimonies, which were stacked high on the desks at the EPA, against loosening regulations on lead gasoline. Eventually the EPA tightened the standards.

After testifying Meilke had a hard time finding work in the places he had been doing his research before. “The lead industry is very powerful,” explains Meilke. So, he came to New Orleans where he was offered a position at Xavier University and continued his work and research. In 1992 Meilke and his wife Tina Covington-Mielke formed Lead Lab, Inc.

Contamination:
“We have been engaged in trying to develop a better understanding of why children are being exposed to lead and the rates that they are,” says Meilke. Lead Lab, Inc has put together a lead database on the amount of lead that is in the environment. Here, in New Orleans, the levels of lead contamination are now well documented, and in some areas as high as 50% of the children have elevated levels in their blood streams. The side effects are subtle and more often than not go unnoticed and untreated. “The education achievement of children who have had lead poisoning is low, they are failing, and they are showing up in the prison system.” According to Meilke there is a very strong connection between lead poisoning and violence.

Many people believe that lead poisoning comes from living in old buildings with lead based paints. However, Meilke and Lead Lab, Inc’s research have shown that lead levels are highest in soils where lead dust collects from both sanding off lead based paints and from car pollution that has stuck around since the days of leaded gasoline. “Something that is often ignored is that the lead used in gasoline for 50 years accumulated where traffic flows were the highest. The daily journey to work, meant that lots of cars traveled into the interior of the city,” Meilke says. At intersections where two main streets came together studies show that up to five tons of lead where released per year. That is about the same amount of lead being released into environment as if there had been a lead smelter in the intersection.

Solutions:
Meilke and Lead Lab, Inc are now working on a project to create lead safe outdoor play areas at childcare centers around New Orleans. They plan to use geotextile materials to create a barrier between a bottom layer of contaminated soils and a top layer of clean sediments harvested from the Mississippi River. They currently have ten centers lined-up, but hope to soon expand their work to much more of the city.

The Importance of Partnerships:
“Networking with other non-profits is going to lead to other projects, other grants, and more money to do more of the things that we want to get done. So hopefully we can make it grow.” -Chandra “Nan” Kipker, Executive Director of Lead Lab, Inc.