Thomas Breen file photos
Chipped lead paint on Wolcott Street. Below: former city Health Director Byron Kennedy.
Inspecting and abating all New Haven residences that contain toxic lead paint and that house at least one child under six years old could cost upwards of $91 million, according to cost estimates circulated by top city health officials.
That cost projection is included in a two-page overview of lead poisoning prevention data put together by former city Health Director Byron Kennedy in mid-June.
The draft document, though brief and high-level, offers a glimpse of the daunting magnitude of potential lead hazards in a city like New Haven, where a majority of the existing housing stock was built before the federal government finally prohibited lead from being used in commercial paint in 1978.
The cost estimates start at over $70 million, and balloon to nearly $700 million, depending on whether the cleanup in question concerns all leaded apartments or just those with children under six years old.
Kennedy’s document also sheds a light on some of the data used by city health officials as Mayor Toni Harp’s administration works on crafting a new five-point policy plan for combating child lead poisoning in New Haven. City health officials have so far declined to share a draft proposal for an updated city lead poisoning law, even with the committee charged with drafting said policies.
In recent years, the Health Department has taken a lax approach to enforcing the city’s lead poisoning protection laws, and legal aid lawyers have repeatedly sued them over it. This summer, in a case still working its way through court, a state judge rebuked city officials for deciding last November that city resources are too tight to follow through on a local mandate to fully inspect and abate lead hazards anytime a child’s blood lead levels exceed 5 micrograms per deciliter.
See below for New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) Attorney Amy Marx’s response to these cost assumptions, which she pointed out describe a “gold standard” of an entirely lead-free city. That’s very different than what legal aid’s class action lawsuit is calling for, and what city law requires, she said, which is the inspection and abatement of all residences that house lead-poisoned children.
“That number,” Marx said, “is a fraction of the number presented in this document.”
The Independent obtained the document as part of a Connecticut Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the email records of recently retired city Environmental Health Director Paul Kowalski that were sent or received during the month before he was put on paid administrative leave at the end of June.
While city attorneys withheld 50 pages’ worth of Kowalski’s emails from its response, citing FOIA exemptions for draft documents and federally protected personal data, thereby handing over not a single record pertaining to why Kowalski was put on leave, the emails provided to the Independent do shed a soft light on the Health Department’s internal discussions about child lead poisoning.
In particular, draft documents shared between Kennedy, Kowalski, Community Services Administrator Dakibu Muley, and city attorneys reveal not just talking points for court appearances and press conferences, but also top health officials’ understandings of the financial scope of following through on city law and why the city should bump up its number of lead inspectors from two to five.
“Very Cost-Prohibitive”
Chipped and flaking lead paint on Sherman Avenue.
Given New Haven’s “housing stock and demographics,” implementing a program to lead poisoning program with “inspection, abatement and relocation” of all potentially at-risk households would be “very cost-prohibitive,” Kennedy wrote in a draft document sent to Kowalski on June 19.
Earlier in that same document, which can be read in full here, Kennedy laid out how he reached to that “very cost-prohibitive” conclusion.
New Haven has roughly 50,000 units of housing, he wrote, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Around 41,300 of those units, or 83 percent, were built before 1978, and therefore almost certainly still have lead paint.
Around 6,530 city residences, or 13 percent, have children aged six years old or younger. And around 5,420 units, or 11 percent, were both built before 1978 and house a child six years old or younger.
Market-rate inspection costs, meanwhile, cost $300 per unit for testing paint and an additional $150 per unit for testing water or soil, he wrote.
According to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), he wrote, a multi-family house costs around $10,000 per unit to abate while a single-family house costs around $15,000 per unit to abate, leaving a weighted average of $12,310 per unit to abate lead hazards.
Finally, relocation costs for families displaced by mandatory lead abatement costs around $1,554 per unit, when judged by $111 per night at a hotel for two weeks. The state statutory allowance for relocating families for lead abatement reasons, he wrote, is $4,000 per unit.
Tallied together, Kennedy detailed three high-level cost projections.
To inspect and abate the city’s 5,420 units housing children under six and built before 1978 could cost $78 million considering the two-week hotel relocation estimate. Considering the $4,000 statutory limit for relocation costs, that inspection and abatement cost jumps to $91 million.
And when looking at all 41,300 city units built before 1978, regardless of whether or not a young child currently lives there, the total inspection and abatement and relocation costs top $693 million.
“Since 1995,” Kennedy wrote, “New Haven homeowners have received $9.6 million in federal HUD funding to lead-abate more than 1,500 units.”
During that same period, Kowalski wrote in an email sent earlier that day to Kennedy and current acting Health Director Roslyn Hamilton, “approximately 1,500 additional housing units have been lead abated with private funding.”
That still leaves tens of thousands of units with potential lead hazards unabated. On the upside, Kennedy wrote, the number of children with blood lead levels of 10 or higher dropped by 76 percent, from 474 to 112, between 2002 and 2018.
“In the past, we had more lead inspectors,” Kennedy wrote in a section on ‘Staffing Capacity.’ “More recently, we have had funding cuts from the State, which has reduced our number of lead inspectors — we currently have two (only one is supported by the General Fund Budget). Despite these reductions, our lead inspectors have worked diligently to ensure all mandates are followed. For 2018, the number of cases of children with elevated blood levels at or above 5 micrograms per deciliter totaled 216.
“To address projected demands (i.e., caseloads including children with elevated blood lead levels AND units reported to us that have lead hazards and a child less than 6 years old residing), we should increase our inspectors to a minimum of five.”
These costs, Kennedy concluded, are simply too high for the city to spearhead.
“In California,” he wrote, “recent court decisions have determined that local health departments may sue paint manufacturers for childhood lead poisoning, which may have implications for other parts of the country, including New England.” Another revenue option for cities, which Kennedy did not mention in his report, is to follow the model of Philadelphia and Maryland in requiring lead-safe certifications before children under six years old are allowed to even move into a particular apartment.
“In summary, in order to address projected caseload demands, we will need to increase our inspector capacity.”
“A Radically Different Proposition”
Allan Appel photo
Amy Marx with city-contracted attorney Andrew Cohen and city attorney Roderick Williams.
Marx, after reviewing the cost estimate draft document, poined out that legal aid’s lawsuit and city law do not require the city to order and enforce the abatements of every apartment with lead paint in the city. Rather, they require the city to inspect and order private landlords to abate properties with chipping and flaking lead paint hazards that house lead-poisoned children under six years old.
To the extent that the city wants to have a conversation about achieving an entirely lead-free New Haven, she said, “that gold standard should be a consideration.” However, considering the scope of the current law and the current lawsuit facing the city, “that’s just a radically different proposition.”
The most striking piece of the draft document, she said, is Kennedy’s citation of HUD estimates that abatements cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per unit. “These numbers are substantially lower than numbers being referred to by the health department and money being requested from the Board of Alders,” she said, which tend to be at least double that amount if not more.
Furthermore, she said, “when it comes to the lead poisoning of children in town, the best estimates of the cost of not doing anything so far exceed the estimates of the cost of doing so.” Medical expenses, special education costs, loss of employment, and even increased levels of crime are all very real social and economic costs incurred by childhood lead poisoning. And that’s not to mention the personal toll of cognitive and behavioral disabilities associated with lead poisoning.
Any discussion of these numbers, she said, “raises the extreme need for having an open and honest conversation about the pros and cons of lead poisoning policies in this city.”
Previous lead coverage:
• Lead Panel’s Advice Rejected
• Lead Paint Chief Retires
• Lead Paint Fight Rejoined
• Harp Switches Gears On Lead
• Motion Accuses City Of Contempt
• City Loses Again On Lead
• Briefs Debate “Lead Poisoning”
• New Haven: Another Flint?
• Harp Administration Admits Relaxing Lead Standard To Save $$
• Class-Action Suit Slams City On Lead
• City, Legal Aid Clash On Lead Paint
• Legal Aid To City: Get Moving On Lead Paint Law
• 100+ Tenants Caught In Lead Limbo
• 2 Agencies, 2 Tacks On Lead Paint
• Chapel Apartments Get 3rd Lead Order
• Lead Sends Family Packing
• Health Officials Grilled On Lead Plans
• Judge Threatens To Find City In Contempt
• Same Mandy House Cited Twice For Lead Paint
• Lead $ Search Advances
• 3 Landlords Hit With New Lead Orders
• Another Judge Rips City On Lead
• Judge To City: Get Moving On Lead
• Health Department Seeks Another $4.1M For Lead Abatement
• City-OK’d Lead Fixes Fail Independent Inspection
• Judge: City Dragged Feet On Lead
• 2nd Kid Poisoned After City Ordered Repairs
• Judge: City Must Pay
• City Sued Over Handling Of Lead Poisonings
• City’s Lead Inspection Goes On Trial
• Eviction Withdrawn On Technicality
• 2nd Child Poisoned; Where’s The City?
• Carpenter With Poisoned Kid Tries A Fix
• High Lead Levels Stall Eviction
• 460 Kids Poisoned By Lead In 2 Years
• Bid-Rigging Claimed In Lead Cleanup
• Judge Orders Total Lead Paint Clean-Up
• Legal Aid Takes City To Task On Lead