Milwaukee lead problems; leaders, residents want answers

MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee Common Council members want answers after the city's health department admitted to lead program mismanagement.

Alderman Jose Perez sent a letter to Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul asking for updates on a several years-old investigation into Milwaukee's lead abatement program, a program that has been plagued with problems for years.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice tells FOX6 that DOJ and the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office are continuing to review the issue, and expect an update in several weeks.

The new questions come after the Milwaukee Health Department admitted in June to mismanaging its response to one Bay View family's lead case.

"I think about what’s at stake, how long we’ve been talking about this, and the information this body has gotten year after year after year, I can only think it’s all been false, and we got to find a better way to do this," Milwaukee Alderman Jose Perez said.

Auditors outlined some steps for doing better in a March 2020 report.

"The findings from the Public Health Foundation have been made, they are clear and it wasn’t entirely implemented," said Tyler Weber, Milwaukee Health Department deputy commissioner of environmental health.

"OK, well, that’s disturbing," responded Milwaukee Alderman Scott Spiker.

Lead in the blood is toxic. It presents risk of brain damage, slowed development and behavior problems in children, according to the CDC.

Nazir Al-Mujaahid found lead in his water – and in his sons' blood.

"They’ve demonstrated issues that are right in alignment with symptoms of lead poisoning, and of course, then the blood actually says ‘Yeah, they’ve been poisoned,'" Al-Mujaahid told FOX6. "The question is who have they been poisoned by? I know if I was poisoning somebody, I would be criminally charged and put in front of a jury and convicted very easily without a problem."

Al-Mujaahid is not alone. In 2019, Milwaukee reported 1,800 kids under the age of 6 with elevated blood lead levels.

"My son is 14 years old, he just graduated from the 8th grade. My son questions if he wants to go to high school, he’s exhausted because he has cognitive and educational delays at this point from being lead-poisoned as an infant up until the age of 1," Shyquette McElroy with Colation on Lead Emergency told the committee.

Milwaukee Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic says the city needs to be proactive on lead. "I think we should treat it the same way we’ve been treating the pandemic, institute a system like contact-tracing and trace it all the way out until the case is truly closed."

"The fact that the city continues to test lead in the blood of children is totally reactive. We show up once children have been poisoned," Dimitrijevic added.

It is something Al-Mujaahid says needs to be taken care of right away: "I think what’s going on is criminal."

Health department officials list several things that went wrong with the case of the unnamed Bay View family. "There was some failures on the inspector and as a result, we are going to be making some changes to our internal policies," said Marivel Montejano, director of the Milwaukee Health Department's Home Environmental Health Division

In particular, Montejano told council members the problems involved trim on the garage and bare soil spots that were missed during the process. 

Mayor Tom Barrett said he wants some of the city's $394 million American Rescue Plan money to go toward lead paint abatement in homes. The infrastructure package working its way through Congress promises to replace all of the city's 70,000 lead laterals, which connect homes to the water main.