Yahoo Lead Story: Lead Poisoning in (Ludington) Is Even Worse Than It Is in Flint

[XLFD]

In 2013, pristine Mason County was easily leading the state in the rate of children with elevated levels of lead in their blood.  Genessee County, where Flint is located had 2.2% of their children tested have elevated levels, Mason County had 11% of their kids test that way.  The City of Ludington itself had even higher levels at 12.7%. 

Since then, Flint's rate has nearly tripled to 6.4% and it has become a rallying cry against removing our sitting governor, Rick Snyder, for his malfeasance for possibly knowing that his appointed Emergency Financial Manager in Flint may have played a part in it. 

Here in Ludington, it needs to become a rallying cry to remove the current city manager, John Shay, from his post for his long-term neglect of our city's water problems, detailed extensively in this website.  He has direct oversight over this problem as our city's manager, and yet his part remains, like lead poisoning, hidden and unaccounted for.  

In today's Yahoo News feed the following article appears as it's lead (pronounced 'leed') story, mentioning Ludington as one of the other Michigan cities home to high blood-lead level rates.  If this is what you want Ludington to be famous for, keep John Shay and his covert policies of neglect in power.

The water crisis in Flint has whipped America into a state of righteous outrage, but just look at the rest of Michigan: In at least 30 zip codes in more than 13 cities across the state, elevated levels of lead have been detected in a shocking percentage of local children — sometimes at almost five times the rate of kids in Flint, according to the The Detroit News.

The numbers add a grim layer to an already-devastating story. While Flint struggles to recover, as many as 20% of kids under 6 years old tested in parts of Detroit — and between 7% and 12% in parts of Saginaw, Ludington, Lansing, Highland Park, Grand Rapids, Hamtramck and a handful of other cities in the state — had elevated levels of lead in their blood as recently as 2013, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. 

The percentage of children in Flint who had comparable levels peaked at 6.4% at the end of 2015, Mother Jones reports.

Lead poisoning is irreversible and causes a host of developmental problems in kids. These include poor motor skills, learning delays, difficulty articulating speech and problems controlling behavior. While the extreme government neglect and deceit in Flint made what’s happening there its own unique horror story — residents have been exposed to toxic drinking water for more than a year — statistics from across the state reveal lead poisoning is hardly an isolated issue.

 

The reasons for exposure in Michigan differ from place to place. Whereas in Flint the lead comes from old and corroding water pipes, the culprit in most other areas in the state is much more common: paint. In 1977, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission outlawed the use of lead-based paint on toys, furniture and other products, including house paint. But many homes built before then are still coated with the stuff. And as time passes and the paint chips and peels, the dust it kicks up is inhaled by the people around it, poisoning them.

The result is a crisis the state of Michigan has spent millions of dollars trying to solve. Their methods — including varying approaches to lead abatement — have led to a significant drop in lead levels in children’s blood across the state over the last few years, according to the Center of Michigan.

[John Doe Jr]

Recall Shay!

[shinblind]

Recall Shay and the entire City Council.

Time to clean house.

And replace the staff at the Daily News or fold the rag.  Useless PR dept.

[Willy]

Good find X however the number of children in Ludington and other cities with elevated lead in their blood may not be from the water. As I stated previously, the soil, mostly in cities, is considered contaminated with lead. This is a much larger problem than contaminated water which can be controlled and I imagine will be the next concern in this continuing story. As I said before people would be shocked to know just how much lead is in the environment.

"The adverse health effects resulting from exposure of young children to environmental lead has received increasing attention in recent years. The major sources of exposure to lead in housing units are thought to be paint, dust, and soil. Food, water, and airborne lead are also potential sources of but are considered to be minor sources of exposure. Currently, lead-based paint is receiving emphasis as a critical area of concern and a principal medium for lead contamination and exposure. Although less consideration has been given to soil contaminated with lead from petroleum additives or from the leaching of exterior paint (near driplines, etc.), contaminated soil may be tracked into homes. Like dust, it becomes collected on hands,toys, and food and is ingested. Concentrations in paint, dust, and soil must be determined if a comprehensive approach to the problem of lead ingestion from housing sources is to be established."

[Jasper]

How does lead affect adults?  We continue to read and hear the effects of lead on children, but what about adults?  

[XLFD]

We have a case study in Ludington from Sherman Oaks.

In this study made in 2011 IQ effects of childhood lead exposure persist with age. they continued an earlier study that observed the effects on children by checking out the test subjects much later in life (most were around 30 years old). 

The results indicate lower adult IQs following higher childhood lead exposure. The lead levels measuring in the older children – 4 to 10 years old – bear the strongest association. This suggests that lead exposure throughout childhood is still important and should be prevented.

[XLFD]

After hearing John Shay's defense of Ludington's drinking water in the COLDNews and on WMOM radio (who are doing the public a great service by getting him to talk about it) over the last couple of days and listening closely to what he says, I sincerely believe the drinking water isn't the main cause of the local lead crisis. 

What is disquieting is that Ludington, Manistee and even Pentwater have high rates of exposure among the kids, when compared to other areas in northern and western Michigan.  Since we all get our drinking water from different utility systems it leads (no pun intended) one to be suspicious of the water we use for our recreation.  What child doesn't like swimming in the lake or nearby pond or river?

We do have some older houses and some bad history of sanitary dumping, but so do other areas, some to an even worse extent.  Shay's parsing of words in his interviews on the subject, his past dishonest acts, and his secretive dealings with state officials and high priced lawyers over these last few years  has me suspicious that he knows more than he's sharing. 

I'm currently digging deeper to uncover more taint.  Please, if you value your city and its people, grab a shovel and help me out in whatever way you can.

[jfc123]

No way , how can that be? The LDN article just yesterday quoted Shay saying there was nothing wrong with the water, (said in a sarcastic voice) There is no way that the LDN did not know if the Detroit News and Yahoo news knew, they just are not afraid to report the news like the LDN are! No one is pulling their chains.

As I have said many times, the residents of Ludington are fortunate that your are working so hard for their interests there. What a joke and mockery the COL council and mayor are making out of themselves. This is really unbelievable that they get away with so much and our state government allow them to get away. Maybe they don't know? Well I am trying and sending a lot of info to the Lt Governor and have open cases with the Constituent Services Division of Governor Snyders office and I encourage everyone there do the same. They wont be able to say they did not know now. I sum up the actions of the COL government by saying that they have been using the PM bayou like it is a toilet and this will change and be cleaned up. If only they had cleaned the mess in 2008 when funding was provided.......

Thank you for your hard work and effort for the COL residents XLFD, you are appreciated.

[jfc123]

All you need to do is click on the blue highlighted text above and follow the prompts. Add the comment "I saw the article in the Detroit News about the lead and the kids in Ludington and all the contamination from sewage and a 2008 storm in the Pere Marquette bayou, what is the truth here?" Can even copy and paste this text. Time to stand up for Ludington! Please do this and grab a shovel like XLFD asked!

[XLFD]

A good start at the state level; if anybody gets a response, please share.  Remember this is an election year so if you do not get satisfactory responses from your elected state or local officials, there is recourse: to actively oppose them getting back in and communicating why they are not worthy to others. 

[Willy]

A study needs to be done in Ludington to determine how many children actually have elevated amounts of lead in their bodies. A random test tells nothing. If 2 kids are tested and one tests positive then 50% of the test subjects would be considered poisoned. The City must check all housing that have lead pipes feeding them and if the water tests high for lead then test the children. This is the only sure way to know what the real percentage  is for the children of Ludington. If the City does not take this seriously and authorizes an in depth study then it's up to the parents to have their water / children tested. The parents should do this anyway because you really don't know if the information will be tainted or covered up. As a matter of fact this should be done in any community that has a lead problem. We may find out that Flint is not that bad after all. If water samples test negative then we'll know that the lead is contaminating kids from a source other than the water supply. Who knows, it could be from Chinese imports.

[XLFD]

The testing of both Mason County and Ludington involved about 20% of the population (of children in the age range), so this cuts down the margin of error significantly because the sample size is big.  Instead of waxing over statistical sampling sizes and such and seeing your eyes wax over, here is an easy to use sample size calculator link:   http://americanresearchgroup.com/sams.html

If we put the total population of kids in the age range in Mason County (1886) we see that our sample size has an inherent error margin of about 4%.  Ergo, with the tested sampling size we could pinpoint that the actual percentage will almost assuredly fall between 7% and 15%, which is 11% (the test results) plus or minus 4%.  This is presuming the sample was effectively done randomly with the population.  Ludington city's error margin is about 5%, which would still put it between 7.7% and 17.7%.

Granted the kids in Mason County with elevated lead blood levels may have got their condition through different means, but at the last meeting where all city officials (except Councilor Nick) and three county commissioners were present the topic of widespread lead contamination in the bayou was brought up and they played 'ignore politics'.  Since then Shay has set up a news release to try and silence the criticisms he rightly deserves, nobody else has done anything.

[Willy]

Thanks for that statistical scale X. Parents should still have their water and kids tested. Statistics won't help if the water they drink is contaminated.

My understanding is the the intake opening for Ludingtons water is located more than 1/2 mile off shore or about 3000 ft. hardly a distance I would consider safe since the lighthouse is just under 1/2 mile long and currents that flow north past the light house will take PM lake water almost directly to the water intake openings. I guess Ludington has been lucky. This opens another can of worms. Someone could easily contaminate Ludingtons water without arousing suspicion unless the water plant has a security guard in a boat keeping folks away. I would consider Ludingtons water supply vulnerable to sabotage.