50K 130K NYCHA apts. have lead: Bill

We need to have the same kind of things that I thought worked so well in reducing traffic fatalities and apply it to lead. — Mayor de Blasio

After previously claiming there’s roughly 50,000 NYCHA apartments that might contain toxic lead paint, Mayor de Blasio admitted Monday night the total could be up to 130,000.

Hizzoner made the startling revelation during a NY1 interview in which he announced plans to launch an $80 million-plus “Vision Zero”-type program aimed at ridding lead from the 175,000-apartment New York City Housing Authority system once and for all.

“We need to take, in effect, a Vision Zero approach to lead,” de Blasio said, referring to his traffic-safety program. “We need to have the same kind of things that I thought worked so well in reducing traffic fatalities and apply it to lead.

“It’s going to take a lot of money, and it’s going to take a lot of effort, but people will have peace of mind and know once and for all what is going on,” he added.

De Blasio made the announcement while fielding questions about his administration’s stun- ning admission last week that as many as 820 children in the city’s housing projects tested for elevated levels of lead between 2012 and 2016.

Health officials failed to follow up and inspect their apartments, it was revealed.

Testing and remediation of NYCHA apartments is expected to begin by the end of this year and take two years to complete, city officials said.

The testing alone is expected to cost taxpayers $80 million. But officials said it is unclear how much the actual remediation of leadtainted apartments would cost.

De Blasio said the inspections of the 130,000 apartments where lead paint might exist would be “very intensive” and rely on X-ray technology that could see through multiple layers of paint.

“This is a massive undertaking — it has never been done by NYCHA and the City of New York previously,” he said.

Last November, the mayor provided a much rosier picture of NYCHA’s lead problem, saying the “universe” of NYCHA apartments that might contain lead hazards was “fixed” at roughly 50,000.

“I want to emphasize again, the universe is not 175,000 apartments,” he then told reporters. “It’s around 50,000 apartments, if I remember, that even have the possibility of having lead in them. And the trigger is when there is a child under 6. So that’s a — that first universe of the apartments that might even have lead, that’s fixed.”

The remaining 45,000 NYCHA apartments — out of the 175,000 total — that won’t be tested were either inspected for lead already or were built after 1978, when lead paint was outlawed in the United States, de Blasio added.

The mayor also said his administration would increase outreach to families — both in public and private housing — who have been exposed to lead.