Document QX9JbZKmDMg88xOV97DVGkmv

Louis V. Lombirdo, Director 1525 New Hampshire Ave. Washington, D. C. 20036 (30 365-0412 Dr. Jerome F. Cole Lead Industries Association 292 Madison Avenue New York, N. Y. 10017 Dear Dr. Cole: This is to notify and furnish you our latest comments to the Environ mental Protection Agency. It also serves as a response to your letter to the Editor of the Washington Post in which you stated "there is not a shred of evidence" linking lead usage in gasoline with pediatric lead poisoning. I am enclosing "a shred" of such evidence uncovered by The Public Interest Campaign which, as apart of its project EPIC (Environmental Problems of the Inner City), is working to define the contribution of lead in gasoline to lead poisoning. Enclosed is a letter to the EPA wherein I notified them of our findings that: 1. The lead content of gasoline sold in New York City since January 1972 has been 60% lower than in previous years as a result of the city's leaded gasoline ordinance; 2. Ambient air concentrations of lead measured at various stations in New York City in 1972 are on the order of 50% lower than in previous years; 3. The incidence of lead poisoning cases (children found to have a blood lead level of 60 ug/lOOml blood) in New York City in 1972 is on the order of 50% lower than in previous years. While more definitive data is necessary to quantify the relationship between lead in gasoline and lead poisonings I believe the urgency of the problem and the critical stage of EPA's decisionmaking dictated that we make this evidence immediately available. From my review of the available evidence, while no cases of lead poisoning have been clinically documented to have resulted solely from the ingestion of heavily contaminated street dirt, lead in gasoline clearly contri- LIA-76085 2- butes to the lead burdenfound in inner city children. Some 600, 000 of these children are estimated to be carrying dangerously high blood lead levels. Sincerely, Louis V. Lombardo cc: Editor, Washington Post LIA-76086