October 31st, 2024 Luke Welch
After recent data from the City of Syracuse was released, showing some of the roughly 1,400 contamined properties containg 70 pbb (EPA limit: 15 pbb) of lead in their water, the NRDC is calling for a crisis. But those affected by the pollution are taking action as well.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Lead contamination in Syracuse pushes local & national organizations to call for crisis
Luke Welch: When you’re 9 years old, your biggest worry can be who wins the pickup basketball games in front of your house…
But for the Medley twins and their mother, it was her landlord’s negligence…
Darlene Medley: Once your children are poisoned by lead they will never reach their full potential. How can you go around telling parents that when you destroyed their kids?
Welch: Darlene and her nine children live on a street in South Syracuse, a neighborhood historically full of marginalized working families, but unbenownst to them, the pipes that provide them with drinking water are contaminated with lead… and for Darlene, it was deja vu.
Medley: My house is positive for lead. Not only have you affected my kids once, but now its the possibility that you gonna affect them again.
Welch: Her previous home was furnished with lead paint, poisoning her children at the age of two.
Medley: I start learning about how its gonna affect their brain, how its gonna affect their diet, their kidneys.
Welch: Hundreds of properties across Syracuse were unreportedly polluted, so the city sued the property managers on behalf of the residents…
Medley: They won $250,000 from my landlord. Do you know how much they gave me – not even me because it’s my children who are poisoned – do you know how much money they offered my kids? Not even a 50 cent honey bun.
Welch: While the water of Skaneateles Lake that supply the city and surrounding areas is clean, over 1400 pipes that transport the supply are contaminated with lead. Which impacts marginalized communities at the highest rate.
Van Brackle: Taking away the issue of exposure to lead, if you have a child that’s not exposed, our children, Black & brown children are more susceptible to not being identified for ADHD anyways.
Welch: Kiara Van Brackle is a Ph.D. student at the Maxwell School studying sociology, her focus, social and health disparities within communities. So when she saw that black and brown homes were containing lead at a 10 to 1 ratio in Syracuse, she joined the NRDC work in signing a letter to call for action.
Van Brackle: With it being a state of emergency, that would free up so funds to help get people some point of view service filters, that’s also a second demand.
Welch: But the city says the demand for a crisis isn’t supported by the data.
Greg Loh: The information about what’s happening in Syracuse, doesn’t support comparisons to other cities in the U.S. like Flint.
Medley: We have more children that are poisoned than in Flint, but the reason we got no news credit for it was because our elected officials allowed the landlords, we have to think, who are funding their campaigns?
Welch: While data doesn’t confirm this statement, Medley says she sees many residents refusing to get their kids tested due to fear of losing their children…
Medley: The last thing he had to remember his wife, they took his child. Thats wrong.
Welch: Organizers of Freedom From Lead CNY believe that the timeline of five years to replace the pipes is too long.
Medley: Be patient, that’s all I keep hearing be patient.
Welch: But they hope with their continued work, youth lead poisoning in Syracuse will become a thing of the past… LW CitrusTV News.