Early exposure to lead has long been associated with cognitive problems. Writing last year in Mother Jones, Irvine journalist Kevin Drum said such exposure has been linked to lower IQs, violent crime and attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder. The gradual increase in IQ across the world has been linked to new laws against lead-based paint and piping.

But in California, state law only requires lead testing for children who live in or frequently visit buildings built before the crackdown on lead-based paint began in the 1970s and for those who get benefits under government welfare programs.

“Given the ages of California’s infrastructure, lead exposure risks are ubiquitous,” Quirk told Kaiser Health News. “The current screening process only tests certain children. Better data can help us better identify clusters and arm the state with a thorough, more comprehensive response.”

In Flint, national media have focused for two years on the problems with water supplies created when Flint city leaders stopped using water piped in from Detroit’s water system to save money by using cheaper water from the polluted Flint River and other local sources. That led to a public health emergency being declared after the supply change apparently sent the number of children with elevated exposure to lead in blood tests soaring to 5 percent, twice the national norm. In December, Congress appropriated $120 million to help Flint deal with the problem.

State lead problems concentrated in Fresno area

But shortly afterward, Reuters issued a massive study based on lead exposure in the blood of children in ZIP code-based data compiled by the federal government in 21 states, including California. It found thousands of communities with lead problems as bad or worse than Flint’s. It identified 13 ZIP codes in California with elevated lead exposure among children. CalWatchdog was the first to report on Reuters’ specific findings about the Golden State.

Quirk’s district is just south of Fruitvale (ZIP code 94601), the Oakland community with the highest percentage of children exposed to excessive lead: 7.57 percent. Next worse was the Sand City-Seaside community (ZIP 93955) east of Monterey. The rate was 7.44 percent.

Nine ZIP codes in the Fresno area had problems worse than Flint: The worst off was Selma, southeast of Fresno (ZIP 93662), where 6.62 percent of children had excessive exposure.

The last two California communities with high children lead exposure were south-central Los Angeles (ZIP 90011), with a rate of 5.28 percent, and Rosemead-South San Gabriel (ZIP 91770), where the rate was 5.17 percent.

It’s not clear yet how much support or opposition Quirk is likely to attract. Reuters’ report didn’t spur anything like a Flint-style reaction among the California media. Meanwhile, health insurance lobbyists are likely to say that the state should pay the tab for a state-mandated test. Medi-Cal now pays for lead screening of children whose families receive government assistance, while health insurers pay for the screening – and pass along the cost through premiums – of children whose families have insurance.

But the recent report from the U.S. Department of the Interior found that the Condor Recovery Program “continues to increase the number of condors in the wild in Arizona, Utah, California and Baja California.

As of the end of July, according to the report, “there are 429 condors in the world of which 224 are free flying (California 123, Arizona/Utah 71; Baja California 30).”

The number is up from only about 55 condors as recently as 1990. The following graph shows the steady increase, which is expected to continue.

Bullets

Concern has been advanced in California that lead from hunters’ bullets has been killing off the condors. The federal condor report was submitted from the U.S. Department of the Interior to the California Fish and Game Commission on Oct. 29. That was 18 days after Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 711, by Assemblyman Anthony Rendon, D-South Gate. The bill bans using lead bullets in hunting in California beginning in 2019.

According to the bill’s language:

“California passed a successful law preventing the use of lead ammunition in condor habitat. However, because these restrictions only apply in certain areas or to the hunting of particular species, many species of wildlife remain threatened by the use of lead ammunition and more protections are needed. These successes have shown us how to extend protection from lead poisoning to other wildlife.”

In his signing statement, Brown wrote:

“Lead poses a danger to wildlife. This danger has been known for a long time. … Since 2007, California has prohibited it in the eight counties within the condor range. In fact, at least thirty other states regulate lead ammunition in some manner.”

However, the federal report found that the increase in the condor population began well before a 2007 ban by of the use of lead bullets by hunters in condor areas. The above graph clearly shows a steadily increasing trend line that did not jump upward beginning in 2007.

One hypothesis the paper offers is that “there are other sources of lead in the environment that condors may be accessing, including 5 individual condors apparently ingesting chips of lead-based paint on a fire tower.”

The authors point to a recent study that found 8 percent of the birds had exposure to lead that “did not match the isotopic signature of ammunition, background levels, or paint, indicating an unidentified source of lead in the environment.” 

Caring for condors

Of the “other sources” of threats to the condors, micro trash especially can be deadly. According to the Santa Clarity Community Hiking Club, which has taken the lead in cleaning condor habitats:

“Micro-trash consists of little bits and pieces of glass, metal and plastic. The Condors are attracted to these items because they sparkle and shine. They eat it, and feed it to their chicks. Both the adults and chicks die. In the last 5 years, we have picked up more than 5,000 lbs of micro-trash in the forest.”

Indeed, it is human involvement that has saved this mighty symbol of California. Every condor is tagged, as you can see in the picture of the condor at the top of the page.

According to the federal study, every condor is captured once a year — twice a year in California — examined by veterinarians and if necessary treated with medicines or more invasive procedures. “Virtually all condors are equipped with VHF telemetry units, and each site regularly tracks the condors that come from that site,” according to the study. Some condors even “are equipped with GPS units,” so they can be closely tracked.

Perhaps if these facts had been better known, AB711 might have had a harder time passing during the rush to pass dozens of bills in mid-September. The votes included many Democrats crossing the aisles to vote Nay, such as state Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana.

As the 2019 deadline nears, it’s possible the Legislature might revisit it, in particular if it looks as if the state’s hunting industry will be hard hit by the ban on lead bullets, leading to the loss of jobs. In his signing statement, Brown also promised, “the least disruptive phase-in, including incentives for hunters to make the transition.”

By prohibiting the use of all lead ammunition for hunting in California, coupled with the federal government’s attempt to ban non-lead ammo, hunters could be left out in the woods with an empty weapon.

According to Sam Paredes with Gun Owners of California, if the state and federal bans are actually passed, the only alternative ammunition available would be pure gold bullets. That might be advantageous for the assassin Francisco Scaremonger, in the “Man with the Golden Gun,” but it’s bad for Californians.

Hunting is being attacked as part of a campaign to ban the use of traditional ammunition, which is comprised of lead core components.

Anti-gun activists become anti-ammo activists

In addition to the many anti-gun bills proposed by California Democrats, they’ve discovered the way around these unpopular bills is by banning lead ammunition. Assembly Bill 711,  by freshman Assemblyman Anthony Rendon, D-Southgate, would effectively ban hunting under the guise of “protecting the environment.”

AB 711 is just one of many bills in the Legislature this year which seek to weaken the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Why can’t hunters just use non-lead ammo?  The problem is that the federal government is on the brink of banning non-lead ammo, according to Assemblyman Brian Jones. In California this would mean there would be no ammunition available for hunting.

The bill has been held in suspense in the Senate Appropriations Committee, ostensibly because of the negative financial impact it would have on the Fish and Game Commission.

According to the Department of Fish and Wildlife:

* “The annual spending by America’s 14 million hunters amounts to $61 billion. 

* “Hunting supported 704,600 million jobs, or nearly 1 percent of America’s entire civilian labor force, in all sectors of the American economy.

* “Hunting created household income (salaries and wages) totaling $416.1 billion, which is roughly equivalent to 25 percent of America’s entire military payroll.

* “Hunting added $1.4 billion to state tax revenues, or nearly 1 percent of all annual state tax revenues combined.

* “Hunting contributed $1.7 billion in federal income taxes, which equates to almost half of the entire federal budget for commerce.”

Many expect the committee will pass AB 711, under pressure from the anti-gun lobby, environmentalists, the Audubon Society and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. If so, the economic impact to California would be significant.

The department, formerly named the Department of Fish and Game when it was more friendly to hunters, has tried for several years to ban lead ammunition in California, claiming the California Condor has been dying off because of lead bullets. Unable to mandate the ban, the agency turned to the Legislature. But charges of phony science plague the attempted ban.

Faulty science

“Without such a ban, extinction of the California condor is inevitable, according to a 2012 study by the National Academy of Sciences,” Yale Environment 360 claims.

“Many of the scientific papers used by anti-lead ammunition proponents to support lead ammunition bans have consistently been critiqued for questionable scientific practices,” according to Huntfortruth.org. “These researchers have used flawed scientific methodology and have selectively cherry picked data to support their preconceived conclusions, while routinely ignoring alternative sources of lead in the environment.”

According to Sam Paredes of Gun Owners of California, this isn’t the first attempt to falsely claim California Condors are being poisoned by hunters. Paredes said in 2007 the proponents of one of the nation’s first lead ammunition bans, AB 821, claimed that California condors were being poisoned by consuming hunters’ lead ammunition. They promised that, if hunters stopped using lead ammunition in the condor range, the lead poisoning would cease.

But Paredes said blood-lead levels in California condors have not declined because condors are exposed to alternative sources of bioavailable lead, including documented evidence of lead paint chip and lead-contaminated microtrash ingestion.  The AB 821 lead ammunition ban (the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act) has done nothing to prevent the alternative sources of lead in the condor zone.

North Dakota study refutes enviros

In May 2008, the North Dakota Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a study measuring the risk, if any, of eating wild game harvested with lead bullets.

The study was designed to determine whether people who eat wild game have higher blood lead levels than people who don’t.

The study found no elevated levels of lead in the families of hunters, who regularly eat wild game.

“The geometric mean of the CDC study of 1.17 micrograms per deciliter was lower than the geometric mean of lead in the overall U.S. population (1.60 micrograms per deciliter),” the NRA reported. “More than 86 percent of the people in the CDC test reported eating more than one type of wild game.”

Yet the North Dakota Department of Health reported their findings a little differently, clearly under pressure from special interest groups:

“Based on the results of the CDC blood lead level study and a Minnesota bullet study, the North Dakota Department of Health has developed the following recommendations to minimize the risk of harm to people who are most vulnerable to the effects of lead:

* “Pregnant women and children younger than 6 should not eat any venison harvested with lead bullets.

* “Older children and other adults should take steps to minimize their potential exposure to lead, and use their judgment about consuming game that was taken using lead-based ammunition.

* “The most certain way of avoiding lead bullet fragments in wild game is to hunt with non-lead bullets.

* “Hunters and processors should follow the processing recommendations developed by the North Dakota Department of Agriculture.”

Their new “recommendations” were hardly evidence of serious lead poisoning problems.

Hunters have eaten venison taken with lead bullets for hundreds of years. Yet according to the NRA and Huntfortruth.org, there is not one documented case of lead poisoning from eating deer meat. Doctors are required to report all cases of lead poisoning to the Centers for Disease Control, yet according CDC Public Health adviser Kimball Credle, no cases have ever been traced to wild game meat.

Federal law

“Federal law allows the U.S. Attorney General through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to make a finding or determination that an alternative ammunition projectile or projectile core is intended to be used for a ‘sporting purpose,’ Jones explained.

“To date the ATF has received approximately 19 petitions filed by ammunition manufacturers seeking a ‘sporting purpose’ exemption for alternative ammunition for the hunting market nationwide, and at this point in time the ATF has failed to rule on any of the petitions. Some of these petitions are reported to have been pending since August of 2011.”