St. Louis Public Schools is starting to take down lead-contaminated fences

On fences outside many schools throughout St. Louis, signs warn of a potential lead hazard and say children should not play around the structures. On Tuesday, St. Louis Public Schools started to do something about the problem, beginning a monthslong process to take the potentially hazardous fencing down.

SLPS is spending about $2 million on the effort to remove more than 6 miles of chain-link fencing from 21 schools, or about a third of the district’s schools. SLPS says the fences were painted at some point before 1977, when the federal government significantly lowered the amount of lead that could be present in paint.

“It's been a huge problem,” said Antionette "Toni" Cousins, president of the board of education. “The district has really led the charge in that, because of our old buildings, we've known it to be an issue. We've worked with our environmentalists for over the past 10 years, really kind of hitting hard and focusing on our lead issues.”

On Tuesday, district leaders gathered at Columbia Elementary School to symbolically break ground in a section of fence that had already been removed. The chain-link fence separates the back of the school building from a shaded yard with picnic benches.