2023 has been a year full of new projects and collaborations 

• Thriving Earth Exchange brought Dr. Monica Andreotta Ramirez to Cleveland for a four day session of focus groups, surveys and one on one interviews. Later in the year Dr. Maria Jose Talayero Schettino came to Cleveland to address the Lead-Crime hypothesis.
• Our collaboration with US EPA Region 5 gave us a ton of new materials to share at the NEOBHC Minority Health Fair in March, four SoilSHOP events over the summer, the Faith and Civic Leaders Luncheon and our first Lead Resource Fair at the East Cleveland Public Library last month. 
• Weekly tabling at community events put us in touch with ordinary citizens who often asked: “Lead Poisoning? Is that still a problem?”  
• Our response to the Lead Explosion at the I Schumann metal foundry presented an unexpected challenge to our lead safe agenda. Our collection of soil and water samples at the site in Oakwood Village put the “lie” to the claims of local officials that there was no lead found around the property,

2024 will be a turning point for lead awareness and lead safety in Cleveland. Our experience with lead awareness and with public-private partnerships is that they peter out after about five years. The Lead Safe Certificate program was passed in 2019, so we’re at that turning point right now. There are storm clouds on the horizon. 

• The City of Cleveland is falling behind on lead safe certifications. 
• The Ohio Department of Health has undermined new CDC standards for child lead testing. (People close to the process have told us that the new rules were a budgetary…not a health based decision). In the meantime, two neighboring states -- Michigan and Indiana -- have adopted a “universal child testing” policy.
• Ohio House Bill 280, if adopted, would extend homeowner tax breaks to include corporate landlords, while at the same time lowering the lead testing standards and procedures, and undermining local lead safety programs in Cleveland, Cleveland Heights and Toledo.  We recall the 2019 fight to block the General Assembly’s attempt to preempt local lead ordinances.

More on CLASH's History.