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With a recent lead testing scandal still festering, Milwaukee officials are once again looking to use the city budget to curtail the threat posed by lead water pipes and flaking paint throughout the city. If passed in its current form, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s proposed 2020 budget would set aside $21 million for lead abatement. Of that, $10 million would go toward replacing lead pipes, up from the $9.2 million designated for that purpose this year.
Meanwhile, recognition has steadily grown that the dangers of lead are not confined to Milwaukee. Various legislative proposals in Madison would not only put millions more toward lead abatement statewide but also require regular testing at schools and childcare centers. As always, the primary questions concern who will pay for all this and will it be enough.
The Milwaukee Health Department’s recent scandal over lead testing arose last year amid revelations that city officials had failed to do follow-up testing and provide other services to victims of lead poisoning. The immediate results were the departures of several officials and a reorganization at the department’s top. But even with that black mark on its history, Milwaukee can boast of some success in its fight against lead poisoning. From 2004 to 2016, the number of Milwaukee children under the age of 6 who were tested and found to have elevated lead levels in their blood fell from 8,385 to 2,851.
Rather than replacing water service lines, much of that progress came about simply by eliminating lead paint hazards, and many people think that’s where the bulk of the money should keep going. They note that Milwaukee is not the only city in southeastern Wisconsin where the pipes taking drinking water in and out of houses are mostly made of lead. Whitefish Bay and Shorewood are both rife with lead service lines. Yet, lead poisoning remains rare in those places. The biggest concentration of lead poisoning cases is, instead, to be found in parts of the city with large numbers of houses built before 1978—the year the federal government banned the manufacture of lead paint.
Flint as Negative Example
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Yet even though lead paint is still recognized as the primary hazard, city officials are not neglecting water pipes. This is partly a result of scandals in places like Flint, Mich., where local officials’ decision to start pulling drinking water from a new source undermined the special treatments they had previously used to prevent lead contamination.
Even more impetus is coming from the growing recognition that the horrible examples provided by Flint and other places are likely to result in some sort of federal mandate. Last year, local officials estimated it would cost $750 million to replace Milwaukee’s roughly 75,000 lead service lines. City officials, anxious to avoid having to absorb such a huge bill all at once, are trying to get a head start.
The benefits of such work have long been known. If there were any doubt about the link between lead and various health and social maladies, a recent study from UW-Milwaukee’s Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health has made the connection even more obvious. The resulting report, “Association of Childhood Blood Lead Levels with Firearm Violence Perpetration and Victimization in Milwaukee,” found a significant correlation between gun violence and lead exposure at an early age. With such a strong connection, abatement work is likely to do little but intensify in the coming years.
The $21 million Barrett would put toward lead abatement could actually increase by as much as $11 million if another one of the mayor’s favored policies was adopted. Barrett has joined many of his fellow local officials in seeking a 1% increase in the local sales tax. The money raised would help pay not only for lead removal but also a slew of other priorities. But before such a proposal could take effect, it would first have to be approved by Milwaukee County voters and—an even higher hurdle—by the Republican-controlled Legislature (who’ve already made it known they are unlikely to go along).
Some of those same Republicans have, meanwhile, put forward their own proposal for curtailing lead dangers not only in Milwaukee but in places throughout the state. Wisconsin Senate bills 423 and 424 would require schools, daycare and other types of childcare centers to regularly test their sources of drinking water for lead. If the poisonous metal was found in dangerously high concentrations, the facility would have to provide potable water from another source, draw up a plan to eliminate lead from its regular water supply and conduct follow-up testing at short intervals.
‘This Is a Statewide Issue’
So far, the Republicans’ proposal has elicited a mixed response. Many people agree that regular testing is the only way to know if children are being exposed to lead at a particularly vulnerable age and, if they are, ensure intervention comes as quickly as possible. At the same time, however, the legislation threatens to impose yet another expensive mandate on institutions whose budgets are already stretched thin.
Dan Rossmiller, government relations director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, said he’s working with the Senate bills’ authors to ensure the cost doesn’t fall entirely on schools. “This will be very hard to carry out without some money attached that would help pay for the cost of testing or remediation,” he says.
Meanwhile, a separate Democratic proposal would put $40 million toward lead abatement; this is the same amount Gov. Tony Evers would have set aside for that purpose in his first state budget had Republican lawmakers not stripped the money out after complaining that too much of it would have gone to Milwaukee. But with Republicans in control of the state Legislature, the self-standing Democratic bill putting aside $40 million is likely to suffer the same fate.
Milwaukee Democratic state Rep. Kalan Haywood, the author of the legislation, said he’s still working with Republicans who say they would like to see more “buy-in” from local residents. “I’m optimistic it will get a hearing and then be passed, because this is a statewide issue,” Haywood says. Many, no doubt, question how some of the same Republicans who are refusing to let Milwaukee County even allow residents to cast a vote on raising the local sales tax for lead abatement can then turn around and say they want more buy-in from residents. Others, meanwhile, are not waiting for state lawmakers to act.
The League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County has been holding a series of meetings bringing together various state and local officials, neighborhood activists and other interested parties to discuss plans to combat lead. Ann Batiza, vice president of the Milwaukee County league chapter, said she recognizes that the main thrust in any lead abatement initiative will have to come from government. But she does think there is a place for small organizations to help people come together and clear up some of the misunderstandings that have long complicated these efforts.
“I do think the acrimony has begun to diminish,” Batiza says. “And that’s what happens when people feel they are being heard, and they see the good faith efforts of other people, up close and in person.”
