CA Cities and Counties announce settlement agreement with NL Industries on lead paint

NL to provide $60.2 million in funding to address lead paint in homes across California.

Chart of the Day: Hands-Free Talking Is as Bad as Talking on a Handset. Maybe Even Worse.

Distracted driving doesn't get better by the use of hands free technology. Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Michael O'Hare points us this morning to a study of cell phone usage in cars that confirms the obvious: it's dangerous. More dangerous than driving drunk, in fact. What's more, as the chart on the right shows, hands-free talking doesn't help. In fact, for certain tasks it makes things even worse. O'Hare explains what's going on: To understand the reason, consider driving while (i) listening to the radio as I was (ii) conversing with an adult passenger (iii) transporting a four-year-old (iv) sharing the front seat with a largish dog. Why are the first two not dangerous, and the last two make you tense up just thinking about them?  The radio is not a person, and you subconsciously know that you may miss something if you attend to something in the road ahead, but also that you won’t insult it if you “listen away”, and it won’t suffer, much less indicate unease. The adult passenger can see out the windshield and also catch very subtle changes in your tone of voice or body language.  If you stop talking to attend to the car braking up ahead, the passenger knows why instantly, and accommodates, and because you know this, you aren’t anxious about interrupting the conversation. The dog and the child, in contrast, are completely unaware of what’s coming up on the road or what you need to pay attention to; the former is happy to jump in your lap if it seems like a good idea at any moment, and the child demands attention on her own schedule and at...

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Lots of data to process for Calif. lead paint judge

Lead exposure in the workplace continues due to decaying lead based paint in place. The complications of this environmental hazard are serious. Attention is now focussed on the Court's anticipated decision in the Lead Paint Litigation trial flowing from lead paint as a "public nuisance" that needs remediation.  Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

Judge Kleinberg A watershed decision expected before the end of the year may come down to how one individual processes volumes of complex analyses of complex data relating to the use, promotion and manufacture of lead paint in the last century and its impact on children today. In a case that took six weeks to try after 13 years of litigation, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg also will measure the credibility of expert witnesses and their theories in The People of California v. Atlantic Richfield, et al. Not only do the plaintiffs have to prove that a public nuisance exists in pre-1978 built private residences in the 10 California cities or counties seeking abatement costs of more than $1 billion, they have to prove that paint companies promoted the use of white lead pigments in residential paint during the first half of the last century knowing it would create today’s alleged public nuisance.

Plaintiffs’ expert says lead paint abatement could cost $1.4 billion

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

Kleinberg

Research director Dr. David Jacobs of the National Center for Healthy Housing and an authority in abatement procedures testified for plaintiffs Thursday that the cost of a lead paint abatement program could exceed $1.4 billion in the 10 California jurisdictions pursuing a “public nuisance” case against paint manufacturers.

The trial taking place in Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg’s court is now into its fourth week. The case is expected to continue next week when plaintiffs introduce their last witness and defendants take the stand to argue that no public health threat exists, and that for what little exposure does exist in California, lead paint is not the primary source.

The plaintiffs, including Los Angeles and Santa Clara Counties and the cities of San Diego and San Francisco, are asking one time lead paint and pigment manufacturers to pay for the abatement costs of eliminating lead paint from homes to protect public health. Defendants NL Industries, the Sherwin-Williams Company, ConAgra Grocery Products, DuPont and Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), claim the suit is without merit, that blood lead levels in California are close to zero and that other exposures, such as gasoline, are more likely to elevate blood lead levels than lead paint.