GALVESTON — During the past 15 years, 2,171 Galveston children have been poisoned by an environmental toxin that causes irreversible nerve and brain damage.

An average of 20 percent of the children tested every year have lead poisoning, a condition that causes learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders and behavioral problems, according to data collected by the Galveston County Health District.

Galveston’s poisoning cases are six times higher than the state average.

Experts say the ongoing exposure to the toxin is so pervasive it is having an effect on the island school district, work force and criminal justice system.

City and county officials have known about the problem since 1992, but their attempts to limit lead contamination have apparently not been effective.

The city continues to get a failing grade for lead exposure every year on the Children’s Report Card published by the University of Texas Medical Branch.

But a new study, paid for by the Kempner Fund and conducted by the Baylor College of Medicine, gives city leaders a second chance to identify and clean up pockets of lead contamination.

Will they take it?

12 Landlords

Although officials have known about Galveston’s lead problems, experts say most of the island’s residents are completely unaware that their homes could be hurting their children.

Nora Flores said she had no idea the house she and her husband, Juan Carlos Hernandez, were renting in the 3900 block of Avenue Q was toxic.

But earlier this year, her two youngest children, Marjorie, 4, and Carlos, 15 months, tested positive for lead poisoning.

In broken English, Flores said she was shocked and scared.

The children both had a blood-lead level of 13 micrograms per deciliter, enough to cause damage.

Two-thirds of Galveston’s residential buildings were built before the federal government banned lead-based paint.

The walls and woodwork of the structures, both inside and out, are coated with poison that seeps into the air and soil when the old paint is removed or begins to peel and flake.

Using data from lead poisoning cases reported between Nov. 16, 1992, and Jan. 31, 2006, researchers have created a map that predicts where children with elevated blood-lead levels are most likely to live — a good indication of where the poisoning takes place.

Winifred J. Hamilton, Baylor’s director of environmental health, said she hoped community leaders would use the map to test properties likely to have lead contamination and begin cleaning them up.

While the list of testing candidates is long, officials could take care of a big chunk of the problem properties by focusing on the study’s short list — 434 of the 2,171 children poisoned in the last 15 years lived in properties owned by just 12 landlords.

The Same Attitude

Hamilton said she was not surprised to discover so many poisoned children lived in so few properties.

“It’s pretty common to what you see in a lot of cities,” she said. “It’s not uncommon to have one person or company own whole blocks. And they usually have the same attitude toward their renters.”

Hamilton initially planned to release the landlords’ names and the addresses of the properties but changed her mind before completing the report.

Although some cities regularly publish the names of landlords and the addresses of contaminated properties, such an aggressive tactic has never been used in Galveston.

Hamilton said she thought such exposure could be an effective tool to shame landlords into cleaning up their properties, but she said she thought health district and city officials should be the ones to make that decision.

She said she would turn the information over to the health district, which is responsible for monitoring the island’s lead contamination.

Although familiar with the study, district Chief Epidemiologist Dana Beckham said she had not seen the results and could not comment on the likely contaminated properties.

But she is planning to use the study’s predictor map to target future neighborhood education efforts. If an area shows a high probability of being contaminated, Beckham said the district would make extra efforts to teach residents about the dangers of lead poisoning.

Hamilton wants to see city leaders use the map to select properties for testing. Without confirmation of contamination, officials cannot say for sure the poisoning happened at home rather than at another site where the children spend a lot of time.

If property owners don’t want to invite crews into their properties, Hamilton said the report might be enough to get a court order for the test.

If a property is contaminated, the report suggests the city prohibit its sale or rental until it can be certified lead-safe.

Once the Hernandez-Flores children were diagnosed, their parents thought about moving.

But rent is high in other places, Flores said.

So Flores took her doctor’s advice about removing as much of the poison as possible from their home with routine cleaning. Hernandez even repainted the living room in light blue to help cover any old lead-based paint.

The landlord didn’t help with anything, Flores said.

Putting The Puzzle Together

Marjorie and Carlos have not shown any signs of the effects of their lead poisoning.

Flores said Marjorie’s preschool teachers told her the child seemed fine, but she still worried about what would happen when her youngest daughter started elementary school. Marjorie’s older sister, 11-year-old Mirna, has trouble concentrating in class, Flores said.

Galveston Independent School District’s ongoing struggle with classroom behavior problems is a good sign the city’s schools are feeling the effects of the pervasive poisoning, experts say.

“If 20 percent of Galveston children have lead levels over 10 and a majority have lead levels over 2, the evidence suggests that will have an effect on the local school system,” Hamilton said.

Jonathan Ward, director the medical branch’s division of environmental toxicology, agreed.

“We have a large number of children doing poorly in our schools and a large number of homes with lead contamination,” he said.

And trouble in school ultimately leads to a crippled work force and an overburdened criminal justice system as students who did not do well in school turn to other ways to boost their self-esteem, Hamilton said.

Nothing’s Been Done

When Baylor officials approached the Kempner Fund about providing money for a health-related study, Executive Director Barbara Crews said the island’s lead contamination problems immediately came to mind. The group covered the study team’s entire $27,000 budget.

Crews was mayor in the mid-1990s when several well-publicized poisoning cases brought the issue to the top of the city’s priority list.

“It was a sizable problem at the time, and there was a lot of interest in solving it,” she said.

Nothing’s changed since then, said Ward, who was an early participant in the city’s lead task force.

“Nothing’s been done in the last few years to solve the problem,” he said. “We have a vast abundance of older homes, especially ones where the paint has been allowed to deteriorate to a level of exposure.”

In December 1993, the city council passed a controversial lead abatement ordinance that controls the way homeowners and contractors remove old paint from a building’s exterior. It’s designed to prevent lead dust from getting into the air, soil and water.

The city had a certified lead abatement officer for three years after the ordinance was adopted, but when the employee holding that job left, the position was never refilled.

The compliance department has been responsible for enforcing the ordinance for the last 10 years. City officials have no record of any permits or citations being issued during that time.

Crews said she was surprised to learn how widespread the problem still was in Galveston, describing the city’s lack of progress as depressing.

Part of the problem is a lack of federal funding, said Steven Lamb, a family physician who spent last year in Galveston studying health care administration.

In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided to funnel all its lead remediation money to cities, which meant Galveston County no longer got funds to maintain its dedicated lead program. And the city of Galveston didn’t qualify for funding under the new system because it did not have a population of more than 100,000.

Last week, Houston officials received an $8.1 million federal grant for lead remediation.

But on a per-capita basis, the island has a higher rate of lead contamination than just about anywhere else in the country, local experts say.

“There’s not a conspiracy exactly, but there has been this head-in-the-sand thing,” Hamilton said.

“My sense is that Galveston wants to promote itself and publicize all that’s great about it. The fact that 20 percent of your children are poisoned is not at the top of that list.”

Still A Problem

Hamilton’s research predicts which houses are most likely to be contaminated, but each building must be tested to know for sure. Some of the toxin might already have been removed during remodeling or maintenance work.

Hamilton said she hoped either her group or a Galveston-based team would get funding to buy lead testing equipment, which costs about $5,000, and analyze the areas of predicted contamination.

The money for such a program could come from local sources, but it’s not likely to come from federal or state sources unless Galveston officials can convince outsiders the problem is really as bad as local experts believe.

The 2003 funding changes were accompanied by new reporting requirements that made Galveston look like it made exponential progress in the fight against lead in 2005.

But Lamb’s research showed the low numbers of lead poisoning cases reported since 2003 were a result of fewer tests being administered, not fewer children with elevated blood lead levels.

The end result is that Galveston looks like it’s solved its lead problem, according to federal statistics.

“The only way out of that is to elevate awareness of the problem and go to national groups to try and show we still have a problem,” Lamb said.

One way to get an accurate picture of the problem would be to establish a program of mandatory lead testing for all school children, something advocated by Hamilton and Wayne Snodgrass, a pharmacology professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch and a member of the National Committee on Lead Poisoning and Prevention.

Hamilton also wants the city to implement an extensive education program that includes posting lead information on city and community Web sites, the public access television channel and at community events.

All of the Baylor study’s recommendations require a commitment from community and governmental groups to work together, something the Kempner Fund wants to facilitate.

Barb Sasser, board president, said she wanted to gather officials and anyone else interested in the problem to start talking about lead remediation efforts as soon as possible.

Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas, who sits on the Kempner Fund board but said she had not yet seen the Baylor report, said she was sure the information would be put to good use.

“If it’s something we can put into an ordinance, I believe the city council would support putting the findings into action,” she said. “I certainly don’t believe the city will ignore this report.”