This was a fascinating talk! I will post the powerpoint and notes when they become available, but here are some interesting take aways.

Lead that gets into the blood must be bioavailable

Lead in the soil can be "fixed" made not bioavilable with a small (specific) amount of hydroxyapatite or phosphate or bone meal. Artist, Mel Chin is using this method in New Orleans. For the sceintists among us here is the report on the research from OSU (pdf).

Phytoremediation  is a slow many years process and is less effective than fixing the lead, though cover crops might be pleasant to look at and would halt erosion. Most plants whose edible parts are far from the stem (like beans or berries) do not actually transmit the lead to the consumer's blood stream. It is leafy plants like lettuces (they test with romaine mostly) where bioavailable lead is readily digestible.

For a normal sized lot in the city that needs cleaning the cost of removing soil is around $60,000 - too expensive (they scrape off the top layer of soil and then backfill with clean topsoil) - yikes! And what do they do with that lead contaiminated soil?

Basta said that the parts per million can be reduced to what he called "acceptable risk" levels with phosphate and then usually some sort of cover is applied - they may even be able to use river dredge to cover the lots (Jim White of Cuyahoga River Rap is going to speak further with him about this. Imagine! We might not need a new CDF (combined diposal facility) in our lakefront!

This is good news (potentially) for Cleveland sick soils...

That's the brief report... more later.

supposedly it too binds the lead into a phosphate.

I don't get it - so they are saying that you can't resell children's clothes after 2/10/09 -well, what are thery going to do about hand-me-downs - a lot of families, especially large families, hand clothes down from one child to another.  Where does that leave them?  I personally don't buy it.   Sounds like a load of crap to me.  Is there really lead in childrens clothes? Or is it just another way the government has of doing something stupid, like always?

CPSC Clarifies Requirements of New Children’s Product Safety Laws Taking Effect in February
Guidance Intended for Resellers of Children’s Products, Thrift and Consignment Stores

"The new safety law does not require resellers to test children’s products in inventory for compliance with the lead limit before they are sold. However, resellers cannot sell children’s products that exceed the lead limit and therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content, unless they have testing or other information to indicate the products being sold have less than the new limit. Those resellers that do sell products in violation of the new limits could face civil and/or criminal penalties."

More info at the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act website under What's New

thats better - that makes absolutely NO sense... i went to the site - it still isnt clear.

 The way I read it - they dont have to test their inventory (big deal - do you have any idea how many children's items Unique Thrift gets in and out every day - this means absolutely nothing other than they dont have to throw away what's already there)

BUT (or as they phrase it "however")

If they sell an item that ends up testing for lead, they face stiff penalties. So - they're not forcing them to test, but if caught they get stiff penalties?

This really isnt fair, so many people (especially non-privileged) depend on resale for children's items. That is how we furnished our entire nursery and toddler rooms. We were very careful what we selected. i bet there isnt a single source of lead in the rooms. Were we to have bought everything retail, we couldnt have done it.

this is going to stimulate to retail economy - (I wonder how hard they lobbied for this bill?) but hurt families.

http://www.stillmadeinusa.com/