Posts Tagged ‘lead’
‘Politics At Its Worst’: Loose Lips Daily
As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT---"Peter Nickles: I Will Not Call You Back," "Video: Is Cleveland Park Dead?" and "The Pershing Park Case: Did A District Official Commit Perjury?"
Morning all. A big thanks to the local politico reporters and Wilson Building staffers who a) Jokingly thought I had become LL; b) Wished me luck in compiling the must-read briefing on local politics; and c) failed to mention the "resident" controversy from yesterday. A few local heavyweights inquired about LL's bike ride to Dewey Beach and wondered if he had made it to the Rusty Rudder safely. I reached LL via e-mail. Here is what he wrote about his trek:
"Uh, well, we left gonzaga HS at 4:30 a.m. then took back roads to just across the severn river in annapolis where we were bused across the bay bridge to where 50 meets 404. it started out looking like it was going to be cloudy and rain all day, but by the time we crossed the bridge the clouds were gone and the sun was shining. so it was really hot. the route kinda sucked. its exactly the same as driving; we rode on the shoulder of these roads the whole time, trucks whizzing pasy, chickenshit in the air, no real scenery of note. but it was for a good cause--autism research--and it was pretty well run, lots of rest stops with powerbars and water and bananas and all that stuff. The first leg I did pretty fast, finishing 35 mi in about two and a half hours. the second leg was somewhat slower---five and a half hours to do 65 mi to Bethany Beach--but i was among the first half of finishers (at 2:15 p.m.) on my junky old bike. so yeah, it was good."
Now on to the news: Councilmember Phil Mendelson has joined colleague Councilmember Mary Cheh in calling for AG Peter Nickles to resign. Cheh spoke out to City Desk last Friday. So what has provoked the councilmembers? The OAG's conduct in a Pershing Park lawsuit in which police evidence has gone missing and/or has been destroyed, among other discovery problems. The U.S. District Court judge in the case has promised painful sanctions, has called on the D.C. Council to investigate the matter, and ordered Nickles to provide a sworn statement explaining his office's conduct. The Examiner's Bill Myers gets Mendo on the record calling for Nickles to go. Nickles offers his usual bulldog-with-rabies react: "It's politics at its worst. They have no idea what's going on." What's going on is available via transcript. News Channel 8's Bruce DePuyt has Cheh and Nickles on the Pershing Park issue. Nickles says he is "troubled" by the missing evidence, and will follow the law. Cheh stands by her comments and says D.C. needs a new attorney general.
LEAD TROUBLES: WaPo is reporting that House investigators have found many more children than previously reported had high levels of lead in their blood during the drinking water crisis from a few years ago. Key graphs: "Local officials could not say Monday whether some children with unsafe lead exposure have gone without intervention to reduce their health risks. The CDC and city health department had reported dangerously high lead levels in 193 children in 2003, the worst year for high concentrations of lead in city tap water. But lab data gathered by congressional investigators this year show that the actual number was 486 children."
AFTER THE JUMP: More public transpo issues, D.C. Police are getting some federal dough, Legal Seafood is fighting to stay inside National Reagan National Airport, WaPo stands up for press freedoms(!) and much, much more.
Embattled GWU Lead Researcher Lawyers Up
The name of Tee Guidotti, the George Washington University health professor who penned a 2007 study on waterborne lead in the District, has been dragged through the mud in recent weeks, and the professor has now hired a top litigator to help clean it up again.
The controversy originated in articles by Environmental Science and Technology and the Washington Post holding that Guidotti had an undisclosed contractual obligation to the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority to allow the utility to approve his study's results, a serious ethical violation. Guidotti's study found "no identifiable public health impact" from waterborne lead---a conclusion that came under fire this year when another team of researchers contradicted that finding.
Guidotti holds that the agreement with WASA required no such approvals. He had denied the charges personally in an e-mail to LL, who had linked and commented on the stories about the study. And now he has retained Elizabeth G. Taylor, partner at high-stakes litigation boutique Zuckerman Spaeder, to press efforts to clear his name.
Embattled GWU Lead Researcher Responds
The last couple of weeks haven't been easy on Tee Guidotti. The professor in George Washington University's School of Public Health has been accused of serious ethical misdeeds regarding his 2007 study of environmental lead in D.C.---allegations which were aired in articles in Environmental Science and Technology and in the Washington Post.
LL "aggregated" both of those articles in his LL Daily roundup, which was enough to earn this e-missive from Guidotti, who is currently working in Saudi Arabia.
First Lawsuit Filed Over Lead Warnings
A father of twin boys filed a class-action lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court against WASA over the lead warning foul up, the Washington Post is reporting. John Parkhurst's two boys, the Post writes, "now 8, were toddlers when lead spiked to dangerous levels in the city's drinking water from 2001 to 2004. They now have learning and behavior problems that require therapy and medication that the lawsuit said costs between $30,000 and $40,000 a year." The Post had the scoop last week on the water issue.
