Transcript
ANCHOR: Onondaga county’s budget with funding for lead programming goes into effect next January. Zach Kopelman (COE-pole-men) reports that not everyone is satisfied with where the funding is going.
COUNTY CLERK: 16 ayes, one opposed. Number one is adopted
ZACH KOPELMAN: It was quiet in the courtroom after the vote. But county residents have been anything but quiet recently. An aquarium was given 85 million dollars while only five million was allocated to lead. S-U professor Sandra Lane says more needs to be done.
SANDRA LANE: “It’s inadequate, completely inadequate. We have 600 children per year who are lead poisoned.”
ZACH KOPELMAN: Lane says lead poisoning can lead to a variety of problems down the road, with it being linked to teen violence and arrests.
SANDRA LANE: “They had better make the aquarium bulletproof, because we have more and more of our adolescents shooting guns and killing each others.”
ZACH KOPELMAN: Onondaga county’s testing data shows that lead poisoning has been on the rise since 2020. Zach Kopelman, N-C-C News
SYRACUSE N.Y. (NCC News) – Carla Mason has been working with the city of Syracuse for four years to remove lead from her home. Despite this, city inspectors recently told her the lead levels in her home have gone up since work began.
The biggest issue: funding. Work has stopped on the home for a while now, and the methods contractors used have caused lead paint from the window sills in her bathroom to seep into the walls and ceiling. she said.
“We’ve been going through this since 2019,” Mason said. ” They just keep painting over it.”