By Roger McKinney

rmckinney@joplinglobe.com

TREECE, Kan. — Treece residents are consistently exposed to environmental lead hazards, and children in the community from birth to age 6 are three times as likely as children elsewhere in the state to have high levels of lead in their blood.

That’s according to a report released Thursday by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The report is based in part on blood-lead screenings done Sept. 8-9 on 73 Treece residents, as well as previous screenings done on children.

Statewide, 2.9 percent of children from birth to age 6 have elevated blood-lead levels, compared with 3.8 percent in Cherokee County and 8.8 percent in Treece, the state health department said.

“Blood-lead screening indicates that Treece residents face similar risks of environmental lead exposure regardless of age or gender,” reads a portion of the report’s conclusion.

The report was forwarded to the Environmental Protection Agency, said Maggie Thompson, KDHE spokeswoman. The report also notes that a normal lead level is 2.5 micrograms per deciliter of blood, but adds: “There is no safe level of lead in the human body.”

Treece, like neighboring Picher, Okla., is contaminated with waste from decades of lead and zinc mining that ended in the 1970s. The EPA is conducting a buyout of Picher residents, and some Treece residents are pushing for a buyout, too. The U.S. Senate last month approved an amendment to the annual Interior and Environment Appropriations Act that U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said lays the groundwork for an EPA buyout of Treece.

Treece resident Tyree Frazier said by phone Thursday that she participated in the testing last month. She said she was informed that the level of lead in her blood was in the normal range. Told of the results of the study, she said they didn’t surprise her.

“When the wind blows, the dust from the chat piles blows everywhere,” she said.

She said she hopes the results bolster the case for a buyout with the EPA.

Children are deemed to have lead poisoning if they have 10 or more micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. Adults are deemed to have lead poisoning with 25 or more micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood.

The median blood-lead level of Treece residents is 4 micrograms per deciliter, while the state median is 2.5 micrograms per deciliter, the KDHE said.

The report stated that “a dramatic difference is noted” when comparing the proportion of children 6 and younger statewide who screened at 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood or higher (2.9 percent) with the rate for children of the same age from Treece who were screened from 2005 through September 2009 (8.8 percent).

The September tests also found that 6.3 percent of all Treece residents who were tested had 10 or more micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, compared with 3.8 percent in Cherokee County overall.