The Knox County Board of Health will discuss expanding the county’s lead program at tomorrow’s meeting.
Public Health Administrator Michele Gabriel tells WGIL the program will have to grow if the Health Department is going to help Galesburg.
“The way it’s set up now, it’s a grant-based program through the state and it only assists people with children in their homes under the age of six with high lead levels,” Gabriel says. “So if we’re going to do any work to benefit the greater community, we’ll have to make some changes to our programming.”
She did not go into specifics.
In reference to an Associated Press investigation into high lead levels in Knox County children, Gabriel says the department believes the cause is not necessarily water leaching from lead pipes.
“We anticipate that about 80 percent of it comes from the actual environment around the child and not from the water,” she says. “For example, soils can still have leaded fuels in them from years ago; paint chips and paint dust can come off from window sills.”
Director of Health Protection Sam Jarvis further says the current Health Department program focuses on lead paint and lead dust in homes.
