Report on Town Hall on Legacy Lead, October 19, 2018
Report on Town Hall on Legacy Lead, October 19, 2018
On October 19, 2018, at Brooklyn College, the relaunched Center for the Study of Brooklyn co-hosted its first event with the Urban Soils Lab: a Town Hall on Legacy Lead, which was attended by more than 90 people including researchers, community gardeners, environmental justice advocates, public interest lawyers, city agency representatives, public health professionals, and a range of Brooklyn College students, staff, and faculty. The event was organized by the Legacy Lead Coalition and moderated by Assistant Professor Michael Menser and Sara Perl Egendorf. Free soil lead screening was carried out during the event by Brooklyn College's Urban Soils Lab.
The keynote was given by Howard Mielke (Tulane University), whose work over the last five decades focused on soil lead. He has been a leading scientist in the country, alerting the public that soil lead is a major public health concern and has pushed for more actions including regulatory changes. The keynote was preceded by an overview of soil lead research in New York by professors Joshua Cheng (Brooklyn College), Richard Shaw (USDA), and Dan Walsh (Columbia University), and followed by panel discussion with Emily Benfer (Columbia Law School), Ursula Chanse (NYBG), Mark McIntyre (Mayor's Office), Leah Retherford (NYC Compost Project), and David Vigil (East New York Farms!).
