Mahoning County looking to help Sebring with lead paint removal from homes

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning County’s lead hazard-control director wants to meet any lead-paint hazard-removal needs in Sebring-area homes as soon as possible.

Phil Puryear said he’ll seek permission from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to spend federal grant funds to perform any needed lead-paint remediation in the homes of Sebring-area people showing elevated blood lead levels.

After elevated lead levels were found in water coming from some Sebring taps, the county health board conducted two recent blood lead-level screenings in Sebring, in which six of 209 people screened had elevated blood lead levels.

Although his department’s federal grant targets high-risk areas in and near Youngstown that have older homes and higher numbers of children with elevated blood lead levels, Puryear said he is confident HUD will let his department remediate Sebring-area homes under the grant soon.

“Four years ago [when the county applied for the current grant], we were made to target the high-risk ZIP codes, so, unfortunately, as of this minute, we don’t have jurisdiction to spend it there,” he explained, referring to the Sebring area.

“However, if there are some issues, they’ll let us amend our environmental review, so that we’re able to go down there and help some folks with some grants if they have elevated blood lead-level children,” Puryear added.

He said today he’ll seek lead-remediation coverage for all of Mahoning County in his application for renewed federal funding beginning Aug. 1.

Read more about the situation in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.