Pol rips NYCHA on lead baloney
No, they didn’t follow fed rules: Velazquez
The city misled a congresswoman about their decision years ago to ignore federal guidelines on dealing with lead poisoning of children living in public housing.
In an October 2016 letter obtained by the Daily News, then Housing Authority Chairwoman Shola Olatoye attacked a Daily News report on lead paint in NYCHA buildings and assured Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn/Queens), that the authority was on top of this hot-button issue.
The letter specifically claimed the city Health Department was following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines in assessing the risk of lead paint in public housing.
There was only one problem: At that time, the statement was false.
When the letter was sent to Velazquez, the CDC had been advising health officials nationwide to embrace a standard it had set in 2012 – to initiate an environmental investigation if a child under 6 registers a blood-lead level of 5 micrograms per deciliter or more.
The CDC advised that an environmental-risk assessment needed to be made to determine the source of lead, which would include inspecting the child’s apartment. But the Health Department chose not to adopt that standard, and instead used a much higher level of 10 micrograms to trigger an investigation.
As a result, between 2012 and 2016 when the letter was written, the department did not investigate the source of lead as the CDC advised for more than 800 children under 6 living in NYCHA buildings who registered blood-lead levels between 5 and 9 micrograms.
None of that is referenced in the Oct. 19, 2016, letter from Olatoye to Velazquez. Instead, the letter states, “New York City’s Health Department looks to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and HUD (the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development) for guidance on identifying risks which are limited to children under six years age (sic) and hazardous conditions which include peeling or flaking leadbased paint.”
The revelation of the 800plus lead-poisoned children by The News last month contrasted with Mayor de Blasio’s repeated insistence that only a handful of children living in city public housing were harmed by lead paint. The October 2016 letter from Olatoye also claims the city Health Department had “connected” only 17 children with elevated blood-lead levels to public housing between 2010 and 2015. There was no mention of the 800 kids.
After The News’ revelation, de Blasio announced that the New York City Housing Authority quietly adopted the CDC’s 5-microgram standard in January and would use that bar for all non-NYCHA properties going forward.
Asked about the discrepancy between the Health Department’s rejection of the CDC standard and what Olatoye represented in the 2016 letter, Velazquez responded, “Unfortunately this latest disclosure fits a longstanding pattern at NYCHA of deceiving the public, elected officials and, most importantly, residents.”
In her letter to Velazquez, Olatoye also claimed that NYCHA was performing all lead-paint inspections as required by HUD.
She did not mention that for the previous four years, the agency simply stopped performing annual lead paint inspections as required by local law and HUD regulations even though she knew of that at the time. City officials have said that Olatoye first learned of the noncompliance in April 2016 and told de Blasio about it, but neither the mayor nor NYCHA informed tenants and the public of this for nearly two years.
And federal prosecutors, in an 80-page complaint filed in June, said Olatoye has made false statements on three separate occasions in late 2016 regarding NYCHA’s lead-paint inspections and cleanup.
Last week NYCHA suddenly announced it appeared to be in noncompliance on issues other than lead, including tenant protection, bid procurement specs, and emergency management plans.
“This is a new day at NYCHA and our new leadership is changing the way we do business. From creating a new compliance unit, to expanding our lead-based paint inspections, we are continuously working to strengthen the authority and better serve our residents,” agency spokeswoman Robin Levine told the News.
On Wednesday Velazquez wrote to interim NYCHA Chairman Stanley Brezenoff demanding details on NYCHA’s noncompliance.
“It’s profoundly disturbing to learn that, in addition to the already well-documented failings in areas like lead paint remediation, NYCHA has other systemic problems that likely mean it’s not complying with federal law,” said Velazquez.