I have been working on the city environmental website this evening, and stumbled across this crazy image: http://dhs.wisconsin.gov/lead/Maps/jpg/city/Oshkosh.htm
About 3 years ago, the city would at least send a health professional over to your house to conduct a free lead test. Now, they refer you to their website, which I suspect has had little to no effect on the hazardous status of lead throughout old Oshkosh. The other option available is to apply for the hard-to-get Development Grant in which the city checks out your home and loans you the funds to get EVERYTHING completely up to code (for those Westsiders, old Oshkosh homes fail on the foundation, electrical, heating, lead, and probably things I haven't heard of) which can easily exceed $20,000 - a lot to put into an $85000 home. Advocap, which lists that it offers a Lead Hazard Reduction Program, doesn't currently offer a Lead Hazard Reduction Program.
Note that no meaningful fingers are being pointed yet, as this could be the result of Tom Petri and his Washington pals or maybe Jimmy Doyle and the State budget experts (the legislature) or maybe our local gov. Then again, if I was mayor, I would be embarrassed that 30 years after Lead was banned in the US, we still have a significant problem in Oshkosh with little to no effort put forth to resolve the issue.
The lead campaign is going to be my next endeavor, as I'm just about to begin the formal campaign to push the city to take responsibility for testing, at a minimum, the beach at Menominee Park that is used by thousands of folks annually. If you didn't know, the city doesn't test the water in any location, including Lake Winnebago and the Fox River, despite the health risks contaminated water posses to the masses of children and families that frequent the beach daily. The County tests at numerous sites, but not within the boundaries of Oshkosh (unless citizens request accountability, the city says no, and the county steps in and tests anyway).
Anyway, the next campaign following our success with the beach testing is to take on the serious and significant issue of lead in Oshkosh. I recently attended a conference that included staff from the WI Dept of Commerce, Division of Health, and healthy homes advocates that addressed Lead issues. We were able to discuss Oshkosh's history of action (and inaction) on this subject, and shared contact information to ensure that the issue of Lead is dealt with. More on that later.
But to leave with a nice image... to all of those who still don't think the Menominee Park beach is a beach, my wife took this scandalous photo from within Menominee Park the day after my talk with the council on beach testing:
1 comments:
Good Luck!
Post a Comment