Group asks states to sue for cleanup of lead paint

Four months after Rhode Island won a first-ever jury verdict requiring Sherwin-Williams Co. and two other paint makers to help rid more than 300,000 homes of lead contamination, a national advocacy group is urging officials across the country to file lawsuits aiming to force Sherwin-Williams to fund lead paint clean up nationwide.

The Rhode Island case, which several attorneys said paves the way for similar litigation nationwide, was closely watched by officials in New England, where older housing stock contains higher lead levels than in other regions. At the trial, Rhode Island argued that manufacturers continued to sell lead paint until the 1970s despite knowing in the early 1900s that the product was toxic, particularly to young people.

In Massachusetts, more than 1,300 children were diagnosed in the last five years with lead poisoning, often related to paint, which can lead to learning disabilities, brain damage, and sometimes death.

Sherwin-Williams and other paint makers ``knew lead paint was hazardous, but they were making a profit off of the lives of our children, and that's all that mattered to them," said Chris Leonard, a spokesman for the state chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, the nation's largest community group for low- and moderate-income families.

``Now we have this problem that will continue for as long as there's lead paint in homes," Leonard said, ``and the only way there's going to be enough money to address this problem is if the paint companies that created the problem pay to clean it up."

ACORN also asserted in a report it released yesterday that Cleveland-based Sherwin-Williams fought rules that would limit pollution caused by its paints and stains, and polluted areas around its manufacturing plants.

In a statement, Sherwin-Williams, which was once one of the nation's largest lead paint sellers, said, ``ACORN's efforts to target Sherwin-Williams are misguided, distort a record of corporate responsibility and threaten to undermine meaningful programs that address neglected housing."

The company also accused ACORN of ``attempting to shift the blame for the lead paint problem to former lead pigment manufacturers, like Sherwin-Williams, from landlords and property owners who have failed to maintain their buildings in proper condition and have ignored local and state laws requiring them to do so."

A spokesman for Governor Mitt Romney referred calls to Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, saying, ``he's the Commonwealth's lawyer and he decides legal strategy." In a statement, Reilly's office called lead paint exposure ``a serious health problem" but declined to say whether it may file a lawsuit modeled after Rhode Island's.

``We have been meeting with those involved to explore additional options and remain committed to enforcing our lead paint laws," the statement said.

Lead paint was banned in 1978 after having been commonly used for most of the last century on the interiors and exteriors of homes, but it is still found in an estimated 38 million properties nationwide, according to federal figures. About 24 million of those homes -- one-quarter of the nation's housing stock -- contain significant lead hazards, such as deteriorating paint or lead dust. More than 300,000 children in the United States have elevated blood lead levels, typically caused by paint, and the federal government has set a goal of eliminating childhood lead poisoning by 2010.

``These companies knew there was lead in this paint but they still sold the paint, and they knew kids could get sick from it," said Dorchester resident Cheryl Jefferson, whose 12-year-old daughter, Safire, suffers from a speech impediment, cognitive delays, and other ailments as a result of becoming lead poisoned when she was an infant. Doctors have said lead paint in the family's former apartment caused the poisoning.

``Seeing that my child has disabilities that she was not born with, someone needs to be held accountable," Jefferson said.

In the Rhode Island case in February, a jury found that Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries Inc., and Millennium Holdings LLC must pay to clean up lead contamination in the state, which could cost more than $1 billion. In the previous 15 years, about a dozen legal attempts nationwide to hold the paint industry responsible for lead contamination were unsuccessful, usually because it is so difficult to determine which company's paint is in a given house, according to John J. McConnell Jr., a lawyer with the firm Motley Rice and the lead trial attorney in the Rhode Island case.

But unlike in previous cases that had been brought by individual owners of lead-contaminated properties, Rhode Island's attorney general filed a public health lawsuit alleging that lead paint was a public nuisance that had damaged the state as a whole.

``That's where the tide turned against the industry," said McConnell.

Paint companies have generally argued that lead levels in children have plummeted in recent years, that the paint industry prohibited the use of lead pigment in interior paints even before the federal government banned its commercial use, and that lead paint is not the sole source of lead poisoning. The industry also faults property owners for not maintaining aging homes with deteriorating paint.

Massachusetts is among the most aggressive states when it comes to lead prevention and cleanup, according to state officials. It offers grants and loans for lead abatement, runs public awareness campaigns that highlight the dangers of lead dust during home renovations, and spearheaded a 2003 agreement with the paint industry that requires warning labels on paint cans, among other provisions. The state also requires that properties that are home to children under age 6 must undergo lead abatement.

Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com.