I’ve been inside a number of
NYC school buildings over the past month and in all of them I’ve seen dozens of unplugged Intellipure air purifiers that DOE purchased and serviced at nearly $100m — despite questions over their efficacy —pushed into corners, unused and forgotten.
The lawsuit @NewYorkStateAG filed today could end up being a big deal in getting better enforcement of NYC’s lead poisoning prevention laws. Landlords have long flouted provisions in Local Law One meant to protect kids from exposure in the first place 1/7
James is specifically targeting a landlord who, the suit claims, ignored the two most basic preventative requirements we have: 1.) Annual inspections for deteriorated paint and 2.) the abatement of lead paint on what are known as “friction surfaces” - doors, windows etc. 2/7
These areas produce a lot of lead dust, which is one of the primary routes of exposure for children in NYC. We have a lot of old buildings with ageing lead paint. This is exactly the kind of problem the law was designed to address... 3/7
The number of classrooms in @NYCSchools with known lead-paint hazards in need of remediation appears to have doubled, according to info given to me by @NYCMayor’s office tonight...
I’m told that, since the initial release of data on lead-paint hazards in schools earlier this summer, DOE has inspected an additional 3,000+ rooms as it began to include first grade and D75 classrooms...
As a result, the number of classrooms with children under six years of age slated for lead-paint stabilization went from 938 to 1,858. @WNYC