Lead problem puts couple in bind
Parents, facing charges, resisted work on home out of fear for children's safety
WELLESLEY - Charles and Jane Ellis say they are not criminals.
Jane Ellis, a mother of three, says she's never even been ticketed for speeding. But today, in Dedham District Court, the young Wellesley couple will be arraigned for failing to address alleged lead paint violations in their $1.3 million home.
Court cases involving lead paint are fairly common. By law, the state Department of Public Health must inspect any home where children have blood lead levels of 25 micrograms per deciliter or higher. And if lead paint is found - as it almost always is in old homes - the state can order the homeowners to address the problem, taking legal action if deemed necessary.
Last year, the state's Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program filed 99 criminal complaints and forced 51 arraignments. But the Ellis case is unusual in many respects. The Ellises are homeowners, not landlords. Their 5,000-square-foot home, near a quiet cul-de-sac in Wellesley, is beautiful, not dilapidated. And the fact that their 4-year-old daughter, Catie, has lead poisoning has nothing to do with the lead paint in their home, the Ellises say. In fact, Catie's elevated lead levels - which can cause long-term neurological problems - began at least two months before the Ellises bought the home last April.
They think the source of the problem was an enamel-covered charm necklace that Catie received for her birthday that year. And believing their home is safe as it is - and that removing the lead paint could create a problem by stirring up lead dust particles - they have been fighting the state's order to remove or cover up the lead paint in their home for almost a year.
The Ellises say they want to wait on doing the work until their children are older, or do a modified abatement now. State public health officials declined to comment for this story, citing the pending legal procedure. But in court documents and letters to the Ellis family, made available to the Globe by the Ellises, state officials indicate they are simply following the law, doing what they can to bring the Ellises' home into compliance and ensure their children are "protected from exposure to lead paint." And medical professionals and lead inspectors say doing the work should make a house safer.
"It should be white-glove clean," said John MacIsaac, who owns Dorchester-based ASAP Environmental Inc., which has conducted some 20,000 lead inspections in the last 15 years. "Now to say that that's always the case would be a stretch. But if everybody follows the protocol, if the de-leader and the inspector and everybody does what they're supposed to do, that place should never be cleaner."
In theory, Charles Ellis said last week, that's a worthy goal. But the law, designed to keep children safe, often takes decisions out of the hands of a family, like the Ellises, who have their own beliefs about the safest course of action, according to doctors and lawyers specializing in lead poisoning cases.
Even when it's clear that a particular home hasn't caused a child's elevated lead levels, the state regularly moves in to clean up the house, said Dr. Sean Palfrey, a professor of pediatrics and public health at Boston University and the medical director of Boston's Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.
It's a scenario that he sees just about every week, Palfrey said. And while de-leading homes makes for good public health, he said, the process often takes a financial and emotional toll on families, like the Ellises.
"I have done the research. I have talked to people. And I believe that what I've proposed is in the best interest of my kids," said Charles Ellis, a 34-year-old software salesman. "And instead, what I've been faced with is a criminal trial."
Catie was found to have elevated lead levels in her blood in February 2007. Her parents blame the necklace - not their original Wellesley home or their current home, which they moved into two months after Catie's initial blood test.
But with Catie's lead count initially at 37 micrograms per deciliter of blood - well above the 25-microgram level that triggers state involvement - a home inspection was mandated. Violations were found, not surprising given that the Ellises' home was built in 1910, and the family was ordered to reduce the problem by covering up or removing the lead paint.
The work could cost up to $95,000, the Ellises say. But their real concern was that the work would create a lead problem - concerns supported by a 1997 study conducted by Boston researchers.
The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that lead abatement projects in a home can cause a child's lead levels to spike by 6.5 microliters in the months that follow. The problem, said one of the study's coauthors, Harvard Medical School professor of neurology David Bellinger, is that the work can expose children to lead if it's not done carefully. "And even sometimes," he said, "when it is."
Lead dust particles, dislodged by the work, can float around, settle on the floor, end up on a child's hand, and be ingested, he said. And that's why the Ellises say they asked the state to let them do the required lead paint removal after Catie is healthier and their children, including 8-month-old Philip, are older.
"I'm put in the position of either hurting all three of my children or going to trial," said Jane Ellis, who raises the children full time. "The state is forcing me to spend money to put my children in harm's way and my tax dollars are paying for them to do it."
Doctors specializing in lead poisoning can understand why a family might be concerned about removing lead paint from a house. "Doing it wrong creates a problem," Palfrey conceded.
But he, and other physicians, added that the risk is low, if the work is done well and followed up by inspections, as mandated by the law.
And late last week, staring down their arraignment on two counts of failing to abate or contain lead paint, Charles and Jane Ellis decided to tell court authorities today that they will follow the state's order and do the work.
"We have to," Charles said. "We're backed into a corner."
In the weeks ahead, the Ellises said, they will prepare to move out of their house, have the work done, and, probably months from now, move back in. Maybe by then, Jane Ellis said, they can settle into their home for real, hang pictures on the wall, and come to like the place.
"Everybody keeps saying, 'Do you like your new house?' " Jane Ellis said. "And the truth is," she said in a whisper, "I hate it."
Keith O'Brien can be reached at kobrien@globe.com. 