The District of Columbia Lead Elimination Task Force (“Task Force”) is created on this date, July 27, 2004, as a forum for information sharing, cooperation, coordination and mutual assistance for organizations, agencies and concerned individuals sharing the goal protecting District residents from exposure to lead.
The Task Force seeks to facilitate ongoing efforts to reduce lead exposure as a health threat in the District by reducing barriers to cooperation among stakeholders, providing a structure for cooperation, and establishing working groups as needed for developing specific proposals and solutions.
The Task Force shall be a voluntary organization, open to all organizations and individuals agreeing on the following guiding principles:
1. Effectively addressing lead exposure requires the open, honest and respectful combined and coordinated efforts of the District’s health care community, academic institutions, civic and community organizations, local and federal government agencies, property owners, businesses, parents and others. Each of these stakeholders has a responsibility to engage in interagency and public/private cooperation with other stakeholders working to address this problem.
2. Primary prevention, i.e., reducing and preventing lead hazards before exposure occurs, is essential because lead’s harmful health effects are very long lasting or even permanent.
3. There is no known safe level of lead exposure and multiple environmental sources of lead are cumulative and contribute to the total lead exposure of individuals. We need to control and prevent lead hazards in several media, including: old paint, plumbing, soil, and consumer products.
4. While we seek to eliminate all sources of lead exposure, not all lead exposure sources are equal in importance and there is a need for greater public awareness about the relative importance of various lead sources. Therefore, we should set reasonable strategic priorities and work to address the most important exposure sources to the greatest extent that resources allow.
5. Because lower income, minority, and immigrant children are at greatest risk for lead exposure, our sense of justice leads us to adopt the goal of reducing such unfair disparities.
Goals
The Task Force work pursuing the following goals.
1. The comprehensive identification of lead sites, reflecting; all available data on homes in which a resident has elevated blood/lead levels, areas with housing built before 1978, areas of the District serviced by water pipes with a propensity for lead contamination, “repeat offender” lead poisoning properties, and schools serviced by lead service lines. The results of this accumulated data will be used to create two city-wide lead-risk surveys using GIS software.
2. Coordination of community involvement in the city’s existing efforts.
a) The Task Force will create a map of all known educational outreach programs (city, community, healthcare organization operated) concerning lead poisoning prevention, for the purpose of making clear which areas are underserved.
3. The creation of a comprehensive strategy to further identify and end the danger posed
by “repeat offender” lead contamination sites.
Governance and Structure
The Task Force will select a subset of its members to serve on a Leadership Council that will function as the Task Force’s primary administrative body. The Leadership Council will schedule and notify members of meetings, record minutes, coordinate outreach to and recruitment of new members, draft meeting agendas, and facilitate meetings.
The Leadership Council will work to make meetings responsive to the interests and goals of the Task Force’s members, operate in a transparent and democratic manner, and ensure that all Task Force members are able to have a meaningful voice in the Task Force’s activities and positions. Task Force meetings will be held approximately every six weeks and at other times as necessary. The Leadership Council may call special meetings as needed. Any Task Force member may request a special meeting, subject to the approval of the Leadership Council.
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