Could Detroit's Ambitious Blighted Home Demolition Project Be Creating Health Hazard From Uncontrolled Toxic Lead Dust From Old Paint? Some Say Contractors Fail To Follow Agreed-Upon Procedures; Some Residents Say The Place Is A Mess!

In Detroit, Michigan, the Detroit Free Press reports:

• Detroit’s ambitious demolition program, which has been razing thousands of unsightly and unsafe houses and other structures per year to fanfare and criticism, may be replacing one danger in neighborhoods with another: toxic clouds of lead dust from old paint.
  
  The city, which already has one of the country's worst rates of blood-lead poisoning in children, also has some of the oldest housing stock of any major U.S. city. And most of the houses being taken down contain lead-based paint, which the nation banned in 1978.
  
  Scientific study of similar, smaller housing demolition projects in Chicago and other cities shows the potential for debris and dust clouds containing elevated levels of lead particulates to spread up to 400 feet from demolition sites, depending on the steps taken to contain it and on the weather.
  
  Detroit officials have made blighted-house demolition a centerpiece of the city’s resurgence, and cite safer, better neighborhoods with increasing home values as a result. Mayor Mike Duggan in October said rising per-house demolition costs partly are a result of the environmental safeguards his administration added to the process.
  
  But the Free Press found multiple instances of contractors not following contract specifications designed to protect the public and the environment, such as failing to adequately wet houses and debris during demolition and removal to reduce dust; failing to remove debris promptly, and failing to notify those living near the projects and provide them with lead-safety recommendations.
  
  Even if demolitions followed city specifications perfectly, scientific studies show those methods still cause lead dust to spread from a demolition site. And the huge scale of Detroit’s demolitions, combined with construction crews failing to use the strictest standards to control lead dust, is likely spreading unsafe levels of toxic metal across neighbors’ yards — and, in some areas, into parks, playgrounds and other public places — based on the results of scientific research elsewhere.
  
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  Terms made, then broken
  
  Detroit officials worked with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality on developing a plan to control dust during house demolitions. They agreed to wet a house with a hose as it is demolished, then spray water on the building debris as it’s loaded out. Called “wet-wet demolition” because of its watering during both processes, the method significantly reduces — but does not eliminate — the spread of lead paint dust contamination, according to scientific studies.
  
  The EPA endorses the process. “We feel fairly comfortable with the process the city is currently using for the demolition activities,” said Rick Karl, director of EPA’s Superfund program for the agency’s region that includes Michigan.
  
  But the problem is not all contractors are following the process.
  
  Despite contracts requiring removal of debris within 48 hours, at many sites, it has remained piled for days or weeks and becomes sun-dried, with dust allowed to scatter to the wind.
  
  Yetivia Adams said she was “ecstatic” that the city razed blighted houses on either side of her home on Lee Place in late May.
  
  “One was burned out,” she said. “They were falling down, dangerous.”
  
  The debris from the demolished house on one side was picked up within a day. But the dusty materials from the razed house on the other side of Adams’ home sat in a huge pile behind an orange, synthetic fence for weeks, less than 10 feet from her house.
  
  “I can’t even come outside,” said Adams, 58, who along with her husband, Robert, is a retiree. “It’s getting all on my porch. I thought once they tore it down, they would come and get it.”
  
  The debris pile was finally removed June 24 — exactly a month after demolition — after the Detroit Building Authority, which is spearheading blighted-home razing in the city, learned Adams had spoken with the Free Press, authority spokesman Craig Fahle confirmed.
  
  “The 30 days was completely unacceptable,” Farkas said. “We’ve suspended contractors for being out of spec,” he said, referring to them not following agreed-upon demolition specifications in their contracts.
  
  The environmental standards called for in the city's blighted-house demolition contracts "in many, many cases are not being followed by the contractors,” Thompson, of the Center for Urban Studies, said.
  
  “There are a lot of cases where you go and see a hose sitting there not being used, or a hose not being pointed where the demolition is going on, or where a single stream is pointed where the excavator is going, and that’s not going to make any difference with the dust plume that’s going in a dozen other directions.”
  
  Even with sufficient hoses and water supply, a house requires a lengthy soaking to prevent dust during demolitions that just isn’t occurring, Westcott, of Environmental Testing and Consulting, said.
  
  “Having a hose or two hoses is going to make a very minimal impact on dust — that’s not a matter of opinion; it’s a fact,” he said. “You can’t wet it enough unless you are there hours before a demolition.”
  
  At a home demolition on Dolphin Street, a worker sprayed water from a hose on the house’s first floor while the second floor was demolished. Dust could be seen migrating off-site.
  
  'They should have ... warned us'
  
  Watching from across the street, about 50 feet away, were nearby residents Katie Pravic and neighbor Shawna Hansen-Ross. Pravic’s 2-year-old son, Corey Keegan, and Hansen-Ross’ siblings, Dezmond Belanger, 5, and Nevaeh Belanger, 4, played nearby.
  
  Both Pravic and Hansen-Ross said they received no advance notification of when demolition would occur and no special instructions to protect the children from potential lead-dust exposure. They were not provided with HEPA vacuums, nor were they informed to keep doors and windows shut, they said.
  
  After learning of the potential for lead-paint dust to spread and the effects it can have on children, Pravic said, “They should have come around and warned us.”
  
  “At least the houses closest to it,” Hansen-Ross added.
  
  Crews should have informed residents, Farkas said. The city’s policy requires hanging notifications about impending demolition, protective information and where to call to learn more on doorknobs of homes on either side of a house to be demolished, as well as at homes across the street, he said.
  
  It was a similar story on Manor Street — no advance notice, no special instructions, no special vacuums, according to residents near a demolition site.
  
  “They just came. We just saw the trucks coming up,” said Tamika King, who lives across the street from a city-demolished house. King has three children at home with her, ages 12, 9 and 5. Her mother, Dorothy King, also lives with her.
  
  “They didn’t tell nobody nothing,” Dorothy King said. “When they were knocking it down, they were wetting it, but when they were taking the stuff out, they didn’t. There was stuff flying all over. They should have told us something.”
  
  Mendota Street resident Gary Watson said crews also wet materials only during the demolition of a nearby house, and not during debris removal.
  
  “My nephew is next door, and his daughters are 6 and 14,” he said. “It ain’t good.”
  
  Even a demonstration video of a Detroit home demolition put on YouTube by Adamo, the leading contractor for Detroit’s blighted-house removals, as an advertisement for its services appears to show uncontrolled dust and limited wetting.
  
  When shown the video, Farkas said, “I did see them using water. That’s what our contract calls for.”
  
  He had a similar reaction to video of a home demolition from the Islandview Village neighborhood on the city’s lower east side from last year. It also showed dust billowing away from the site.
  
  “This contractor is following our specifications for using the wet demo(lition),” Farkas said. “I would add, this house sitting there as it is, unaddressed, creates its own public health issue.”

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