much. >> Thank you for having me.
>> As we reported last week, the city of Milwaukee and its health
department are in crisis mode right now, trying to clean
public schools of lead contamination. Lead that's
resulted in the closure of schools as mitigation to remove
flaking lead paint and lead dust from children's classrooms
proceeds. And now the CDC has alerted Milwaukee that it cannot
help because federal cuts have eliminated its lead program. We
sat down with Milwaukee Health Commissioner Mike Totoraitis for
more on all of this. How big of a public health emergency is
this? >> It is certainly a crisis. We,
as you know, the district has around 68,000 students district
wide and over 100 buildings that were built before 1978. When we
started our investigation in January, it was concerning to
see the kind of systemic issues of maintenance that did not
maintain the lead painted surfaces. And, you know, the
cleaning practices that left a lot of lead dust present in the
classroom. So given the number of buildings and the number of
students in these buildings, we were extremely concerned about
what was happening. >> So could a public health
emergency be declared? >> Yes. And generally we use
those designations when there's immediate legal action that has
to happen that normally in my role as a health officer for the
city, you know, I am charged with protecting the health and
safety of our residents and guests of the city. At the same
time. I have a lot of authority under state and local ordinance
to protect the health of everyone, and in this case,
declaring an emergency wouldn't have afforded me any different
authority to say, close a school or to require testing of
students. The other really important part is an emergency
declaration doesn't actually release any funds. So there
aren't there isn't like a pot of $1 million just waiting to be
tapped for this moment. And thankfully, we've been very
fortunate in, you know, these are mandated services that we
provide as a department is investigating lead hazards here
to do this work. We're thinking about long term ways to do that.
But. At this point, we're not going to declare one.
>> How did it happen that schools weren't made safe from
lead? >> We uncovered that the
district wasn't following their lead maintenance plan. So it's a
plan that the district has created that outlines what they
will do on an annual basis to ensure lead safe schools and
classrooms where the students are through our investigation,
based on the level of paint degradation and the level of
dust that was identified through our investigation, we've
determined that this wasn't something that happened
overnight. This was, you know, years in the making of the
facilities not being maintained. And now we're at this stage
where there's significant lead hazards present. For the
students and staff. >> But meanwhile, you're now
told that the CDC cannot help you because of federal budget
cuts that eliminated its lead program. Where does that leave
Milwaukee? >> It's, you know, a kind of a
similar space of trying to navigate the uncertainty. You
know, we were really floored to receive that notification that
the team that we had been working with since the beginning
of the year on their childhood lead team for the CDC, the
nation's top lead experts, were let go across the CDC, the HHS
eliminated, you know, you know, several thousand people,
including the childhood lead team. Really unprecedented time
for the health of our country, and particularly here in
Milwaukee as we deal with this crisis. We had planned to have
these experts help us validate what we were already doing, and
they were going to bring additional expertise to the
epidemiologic investigation and to was the child poisoned at
their home? Were they poisoned in the schools? As we screened
more children. >> Will all the schools be
inspected? >> Yep. So the plan right now, I
think it's roughly 100 schools. Essentially, we created a
prioritization list based on age of school, the age of the
students in the school. You know, recent renovations, those
kinds of things to help rank what schools needed to get
inspected. Quickly and which schools are newer and might not
have any lead hazards present. So that plan hopefully actually
will be released either today or on Monday. And then parents can
have a general sense of when their school might be closed, as
they do renovations and stabilization work, or if
they're going to close part of the school, only to do.
Renovation and stabilization. But the district has a mandate
to ensure healthy and safe schools across the entire
district. And we're here to enforce that. And really help
the district equip themselves with a sustainable plan to
manage all of their buildings. >> What about the children? Will
they all be tested? >> That's our recommendation to
the district. So we are working with them to put a testing plan
in place. I think the part I would reiterate is that parents
can find out right now if their kid has been poisoned. So
whether they're working with their primary care provider or
their pediatrician, that screening data will tell you
right away as we work with the district, to have them return to
compliance. One of the ways that we feel is warranted at this
point is to require the district to screen the children.
>> What is your message to citizens and parents and
students and teachers in this city on all of this?
>> Continue to ask the questions as the district releases their
plan with the timeline for future closures and future work.
Parents should refer back to that plan as well, and continue
to ask the district additional questions about progress made
and other updates that might be relevant to the learning
experience of students here in experience of students here in