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Editorial
First I’d really like to thank Toby Griffin of Pictureproducts for being the major Volcano Art Prize (VAP) sponsor for the 5th year in a row.
And to thank PARE Medical Services Pty Ltd for a major donation this quarter that will keep us going into 2017.
First up in this issue, we have the most important work of Dr Godofredo Arauzo-Chuco from The LEAD Group’s Technical Advisory Board. Dr Arauzo-Chuco’s work in Peru was first mentioned by The LEAD Group in 2006 in “Caso Presentado: Ayuda a un doctor que ayuda 35,000 personas envenenadas por plomo alrededor de la fundidora de plomo en la Oroya-Peru Como Glass trabaja” [English translation: “Case File: Helping a Doctor help 35,000 Lead-Poisoned People Around the La Oroya Lead Smelter”] at www.lead.org.au/fs/La_Oroya_Peru_20060324_Spanish.pdf; [www.lead.org.au/fs/La_Oroya_Peru_20060324_English.pdf ]
Godofredo is truly a hero of the people.
Another lead hero of mine, Barbara Miller of the Silver Valley People's Action Coalition, and Silver Valley Community Resource Center (SVCRC) in Kellogg, Idaho has had a major media success with the 12th June 2016 article Bunker Hill Superfund site is still a toxic mess, with legacy of suffering in Newsweek. You can read the first four paragraphs of the Newsweek article (subtitled Thirty Years after the EPA Declared the Mines of the Coeur d'Alene River Basin a Superfund Site, Locals Still Suffer from Lead Poisoning),at www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-455360872.html and subscribe to Newsweek to read the rest. Congratulations Barbara!
Next up is first the bad news on fine particulate air pollution deaths from the World Health Organization. WHO estimates that around 3 million people die annually due to outdoor air pollution and in 2012 6.5 million died due to indoor and outdoor air pollution together. Our Tips & Facts section explains why lead is a significant component of fine particulate matter. Then some good news from the USA in the form of a Lead Policy Tool which every country could use as a model to bring down blood lead levels.
Hoping to prevent the creation of more lead poisoned youth at yet another lead-contaminated industrial site in Sydney, The LEAD Group has objected to a proposed battery-breaking facility at Ingleburn. See the submission to Planning NSW below.
Prof Ravi Naidu of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Contamination, Assessment & Remediation of the Environment (CARE) or CRC CARE, has been doing some excellent work on contaminated sites in the globalCARE program and I’d like to thank CRC CARE for permission to reprint their July 2016 Remediator #7 with all the latest on globalCARE.
Macquarie University Doctoral Student Paul Harvey and The LEAD Group’s President Professor Mark Taylor have been interviewed by 9News in Sydney and Perth about an journal article due to be published in November 2016, called Widespread copper and lead contamination of household drinking water, New South Wales, Australia.
The following is an excerpt:
”Lead free taps: Testing in the study shows that using a tap made from stainless steel, which does not contain lead, prevents lead entering the water at the tap stage of the plumbing infrastructure.”
The really good news is that Vinco Hardware, an importer of No Lead stainless steel kitchen and bathroom (home and restaurant) tapware, has become the newest Lead Safe World Partner of The LEAD Group, and donated a stainless steel tap – called “Clyde”! – for The LEAD Group’s office rainwater kitchen drinking water supply. See http://vinco.com.au/product-category/lead-free-bathroom-kitchen-tapware/?term_id=70 (and click on “click on here to read”).
Paul Harvey has kindly supplied an article for LEAD Action News about the research and a LEAD Group Kit purchaser has submitted her experience with leaded drinking water.
Then we have a couple of articles from the US on leaded spices and on household dust which is followed by a notice from the Australian Dust Removalists Association (ADRA) welcoming contractors to apply to join ADRA - so that The LEAD Group has more ceiling dust removalist referrals in Australia! Home cavity dust detox should always be done by an ADRA contractor but we have some quotable quotes to inspire you to do interior dust detox yourself! And it would be wonderful if anyone near Summer Hill would volunteer to manage files in The LEAD Group’s office.
Thanks go to the Australian Veterinary Association for permission to reprint the final article by Dr Rupert Woods about early December 2016 when lead ore dust filled the air in the port of Esperance in Western Australia and 9,000 birds died of lead poisoning (before the ore was shipped to China). Check out the 2016 VAP entry on the topic of protecting birds, as well as all the other 2016 VAP entries, in the final photospread.
Once more, I invite you to take action today, in readiness for the WHO International Lead Week of Action held during the last full Sunday to Saturday week in October.
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