KELLOGG, Idaho -- While children living in the Bunker Hill Superfund site have the lowest levels of lead in their blood in decades, the amount is still twice the national average.
The results of a survey done this year indicate 8.3 percent of the 375 children tested have unacceptable levels. On average, those children had 4.8 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. The national average is 2 to 3 micrograms.But the 1998 numbers are still encouraging, said Ian von Lindern, president of Tera-Graphics Environmental Engineering in Moscow. The company has a contract with the state to analyze Superfund data.
When the Bunker Hill smelter operated without pollution controls, the average blood-lead level was 65 micrograms per deciliter in 1974. The smelter closed in 1980.
Not all Superfund communities had decreases in blood-lead levels this year, von Lindern said.
"If we have discouraging information this year, it was in Smelterville," he told about 30 people attending a Bunker Hill Superfund Task Force meeting Thursday.
Last year, 9 percent of the Smelterville children tested had lead levels above 10 micrograms. This year, 14 percent did. Lindern attributed the increase to children playing in lead-contaminated areas.
He hopes that 95 percent of all children in the Superfund area will have levels less than 10 micrograms when the cleanup is complete.