SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – As the New York State Department of Transportation is set to begin the demolition of I-81 later this year, health experts, advocacy groups, and residents are voicing their concerns about heightened lead exposure in the city.
Jeannette Zoeckler, director of the Occupational Health Clinical Center in Syracuse, has warned state and local officials about the significant concern of lead exposure during this project— especially for the workers. She put into perspective just how serious of an issue lead exposure is in the city.
“Syracuse has had such a difficult problem with the lead already,” Zoeckler said. “People suffer from more lead exposure here [Syracuse] than in Flint, Michigan.”
Let alone the concern of exposure, Zoeckler has also been adamant about educating people on how detrimental lead exposure can be to someone’s health.
“If you put it into this perspective, the amount of sugar in a Splenda packet is the amount of lead needed to cause some type of health issue when lead exposure occurs,” Zoeckler said. “Lead exposure can cause an array of health issues, which is why we’re pushing hard for the health standards to be raised during the I-81 demolition.”
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards for projects like this are just the baseline of the type of protection the workers need, according to Zoeckler and her colleagues.
As the project start date approaches, the state is still in the negotiation phase with whom the contractors will be.
For Zoeckler, this is an essential part of deciding what other precautions must be in place to ensure the best possible protection of workers. Until that complete agreement is reached on the safety protocols on lead exposure during the project, she is pushing to delay the construction’s start date.
The I-81 demolition is a project that many people have looked forward to, including Emily Kulkus, a longtime Syracuse resident and PTO president of the Syracuse Latin School.
“It’s just going to look, feel, sound, smell differently, and that’s a pretty cool thing when it comes to Syracuse,” Kulkus said.
As excited as she and other residents may be, she knows this project will be challenging. Not only will it be difficult, but it will also be timely. The I-81 transformation isn’t expected to be completed until 2028, a full six-year plan, according to the New York State Department of Transportation.
Kulkus is a mother of two; both of her kids attend Syracuse Latin School. The school sits atop a hill in the Outer Comstock neighborhood, next to I-81. Safety is her primary concern with her kids going to school close to the future project site and knowing how close others live to 81.
Like Zoeckler voiced, Kulkus says timing and safety must go hand in hand to ensure this project is operated successfully.
“If lead is a concern, then it should be the top concern,” Kulkus said. “I think as eager as everyone is to get this done and make it happen and transform our city, which I think it does have the potential to do, I want to make sure the safety of our community comes first. With the historical context behind I-81 and its original construction, they [project managers] better do this right.”