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Learn how to ensure safe drinking water quality in your home or child care program.
Voluntary lead testing is FREE for Greater
Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW) customers. Your results will be reviewed with you by one of GCWW’s representatives. Help promote lead-safe communities for our children. Get your free water test kit and learn how to: Be Lead Safe With Your Drinking Water Today!
For more information: Lead.myGCWW.org
To obtain your free lead sampling kit, contact: Kathleen Frey at 513.591.5068 / Kathleen.Frey@gcww.cincinnati-oh.gov or Jim Nelson at 513.591.6869/ James.Nelson@gcww.cincinnati-oh.gov
Lead poisoning prevention
Protecting children from exposure to lead is important to lifelong good health. Even low levels of lead in a child’s blood have been shown to affect IQ, the ability to pay attention and academic achievement. More importantly, the negative effects of lead exposure cannot be corrected.
Lead-based paint and lead contaminated dust are the most hazardous sources of lead exposure for U.S. children. Lead-based paints were banned for use in housing in 1978. All houses built before 1978 are likely to contain some lead-based paint. Approximately 24 million households have deteriorated (chipped or cracked) leaded paint and elevated levels of lead-contaminated house dust. More than four million of these dwellings are home to one or more young children.
Children under the age of 6 years old are at the greatest risk because they tend to put their hands or other objects -- which may be contaminated with lead dust --into their mouths.
Renovating your home can disturb lead paint surfaces. Make sure your child does not have access to peeling paint or chewable surfaces painted with lead-based paint. Children and pregnant women should not participate in activities that disturb old paint or in cleaning up paint debris during the renovation.
CHD can assist you in testing paint and dust from your home for lead. For more information, or to see if you may qualify for a grant to make your home lead-safe, call 513-357-7420 or click here.