Lead and Coal

At her one year check up, Amelia was tested for lead, and her results were on the high side. For the past couple of weeks, we have been searching for the source of her exposure. She has spent her life in two very old houses. While we can't test the DC house, we have had the Denver house tested thoroughly and are waiting for results.

The man who tested our house was very kind and informative. He reassured me a little about Amelia's lead level (a nine), saying that while lead is very bad for babies and children, a nine is on the high side of normal, to the extent that there is a normal.

He spent 5 hours at our house, testing and explaining. I know a lot about lead now. But one of the things he said stuck with me. He was going off on a tangent about cadmium, saying that now that lead is being more regulated, some companies are switching to cadmium (for example, see this recall of a toy from McDonald's here).

Then he said, "But it's not just lead, and it's not just cadmium. There are thousands of terrible things in our environment, and we put most of them there ourselves, or allow them to be there."

About a week later, I read a post on Beyond Friendship Gate, my friend Caroline's blog. She has been learning and speaking out against coal ash for awhile now.

Coal ash is waste from coal-fueled power plants. Its disposal is currently unregulated.
While we are continue our search for the lead in Amelia's environment, please take a minute to read Caroline's post about coal ash.

The EPA is taking comments from the public about coal ash until November 19. If you decide that you would like to speak out against coal ash, you can comment in less than a minute by using a pre-written letter here. If you like, you can do what I did and add personal comments at the beginning of the letter, too.

I know lots of people in our families have been concerned about Amelia's lead exposure. Dean and I have certainly been worried. But the truth is that there are thousands of other things she comes into contact with that are similarly harmful. Lead is just one that we have become more careful about fairly recently. Please take a moment to learn a little about coal ash, and to speak out sometime against it during the next four days.