Traces of lead found in newborn’s blood

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/3098442.shtml

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Traces of lead found in newborn’s blood

By GLEN BOLDUC
Staff Writer

Staff photo by Jim Evans

Lenora Cotta says her 15-day-old son Axel has tested positive for lead in his blood from contaminated drinking water at the Lakehurst Acres apartments in Manchester.

MANCHESTER — Axel had only been out of his mother’s womb for six days when he got tested for lead.

“It’s not exactly something you take lightly,” said his mother, 20-year-old Lenora Cotta.

She had been waiting since the Monday before Labor Day. Axel’s father, Seamus, slept little, and each phone ring at their Lakehurst Acres apartment was full of anxiety.

Cotta finally heard back Wednesday.

Axel tested positive for traces of lead, Cotta said, but the levels may be low enough to escape major health problems.

“Just the fact that it’s even a problem is ridiculous,” she said. “There are so many kids here.”

Officials say abnormally high levels of lead that have been leaking into the drinking water at Lakehurst Acres should be eliminated next week after the property owners install state-approved equipment to correct the problem.

Catherine Whitney, chief operating officer for C&C Realty Management, which oversees the 25-unit housing development on Pond Road, said the equipment will be installed by Monday and will prevent more lead from contaminating the drinking water, and poisoning the estimated 40 people who live there.

Officials believe the development’s water pipes corroded, releasing the lead into the water.

After the equipment is installed, reduction in the amount of lead in the water “will be almost immediate,” said Carlton Gardner, compliance and enforcement team leader for the Maine Drinking Water Program with the Department of Health and Human Services.

But, Gardner cautioned, it is hard to say how long it will take for the pipes to be coated and protected.

C&C Realty, an Augusta-based firm that manages 19 properties throughout the state, said it will continue to provide residents with bottled water until lead levels return to normal.

Late last month, residents of Lakehurst Acres were told by C&C Realty officials that they should consider seeing a doctor after water tests indicated that lead levels were more than 100 times higher than federal limits.

This week, nurses and volunteers from the Maine Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program were taking blood samples from residents who cannot make it to a doctor.

“We wanted to make sure there were no barriers on people getting their blood tested,” said Andrew Smith, state toxicologist for the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Test results should be available in a few days.

The Maine Department of Health and Human Services intends to pay medical fees for residents who do not have access to medical insurance.

Federal limits say lead levels in drinking water should not exceed 15 parts per billion. Water from homes tested in Lakehurst reached into the hundreds and thousands of parts per billion, with one of the highest readings hitting 1,600 parts per billion.

“Often, the problem with lead … is that it’s present with the plumbing,” Smith said.

For Lakehurst Acres, the cause of the increased lead levels came after the property managers installed a filtration system to help eliminate arsenic, Gardner said. Arsenic flows naturally in the ground water of that area of Pond Road, she said, and Lakehurst’s drinking water comes from a well.

After the installation of the arsenic control equipment, the water grew more acidic and began to corrode and eat away at the water pipes.

“Nobody expected to see this increase in lead,” Gardner said.

“An important consideration is the age of the building,” Smith said.

By the 1920s, most pipes installed for water distribution were made of iron, at least in part because lead was known to seriously contaminate drinking-water supplies. But lead solder was used well into the 1980s to seal water pipes together. Whitney said the Lakehurst Acres property was built sometime near 1980.

Lead poisoning can effect anyone, but the highest risk is to children under the age of 5, whose developing brains can be ravaged by the toxin. Even in low doses, lead can impair neurological function, and at higher levels it can cause stunted growth.

Lead could have been leaching into drinking water since May, but the effects of the lead will differ depending on how much each resident ingested, and how quickly their bodies absorbed the metals.

“We consumed a lot of it,” said Cotta.

Although the same variables play out in how long lead remains in the blood, Amrich said, in most cases lead is excreted entirely from the body within two months.

“There really is not any treatment,” she said.

The Department of Health and Human Services last week approved installing equipment that will help balance the water chemistry, and stop lead from leaching into drinking water.

“Finding lead in water in Maine is unusual,” said Amrich, whose program monitors and analyzes the roughly 16,000 blood lead test results submitted each year.

According to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, lead is potentially present in the environment of almost 80 percent of the housing in Maine. Exposure to lead is most common in buildings built before 1950 — when paint contained up to 50 percent lead — and in buildings built before 1978, before use of it in house paint was outlawed.

Before C&C Realty was hired in January by the Lakehurst Acres Association, Whitney said, past property managers knew of increased levels of copper in the drinking water.

The federal government mandates that public housing units such as Lakehurst Acres be tested either every three years, every year, or every six months, depending on the need.

Records kept by the Maine Drinking Water Program show that six-month tests — which are administered to high-risk water systems — have been going on at Lakehurst for more than a year because of copper traces in the water, Gardner said.

Glen Bolduc — 623-3811, Ext. 431

gbolduc@centralmaine.com