Ch24 - Kern the Environmentalist

While scientific experts across multiple fields had sought to explain the lead sourcing riddle, a partial solution waited on a merchant’s recollections. Whether or not George Kern’s rationale depended upon Shabbat candles or crisp Hoagie buns remains undocumented.

Missouri Dept. Natural Resources –Grandview architecture

CHAPTER 24 KERN THE ENVIRONMENTALIST January 1981

Across December 1980 the blood lead project exploded. While the

Jarrell-Ash laboratory turnaround time stretched from one day to nearly a work week, the Woz continued to encourage testing.

The good news for the city’s children was that Mel had discontinued fern-bed sojourns in favor of lead contamination sourcing. Weekend mornings he departed in a worn patch-sleeve blazer paired with a starched blue oxford button-down shirt, creased khaki trousers and inspection-ready oxfords. Everything for a reason, nothing left to chance.

Mel repeatedly visited red-pinned addresses, seeking characteristics that might differentiate them from lessercontaminated green- or even yellow-pinned sites. Perhaps from Sanborn fire map data he developed uniform evaluation entries Age, number of stories, construction type, roof characteristics, outbuildings, present or not.

Mel’s transportation was as distinctive as his wardrobe selections. He and his wife owned an ash-door paneled 1949 Chrysler Town&Country station wagon purchased thirty years

earlier, sufficiently rare he had encountered only one other in Kansas City. Yes they waved.

A mechanic had once suggested Mel might trade his Woodie. He declined, disliking the nickname and suggestion. He also stayed the course on the lead contamination issue, consuming weekends with long, repetitive drives.

Mel added thousands of miles to the Town&Country’s odometer that winter, pausing infrequently to satisfy the car’s appetite for ethyl-grade gasoline. A carefully refolded Gallup map and a field notebook never left its front seat, joined there by a clipboard. As Racer generated more red-pinned entries, newer reports joined predecessors but the bottom red-pinned entry never changed.

By mid-December, Mel’s drive-bye’s carried big number totals, three hundred houses, home to seven hundred Kansas City children. Each drive segment witnessed the Town&Country idled next to a curb, fewer than fifty-feet from the most recent red-pinned lead over-exposure.

By Sunday evening Mel concluded weekend circuits at the same tired Spruce avenue house. A dilapidated frame house there corresponded to the clipboard’s bottom entry, two stepsiblings residing there had generated Racer’s original red-pinned measurements, identical 30.0 unit red-pins. Spruce avenue joined tree-derived Poplar and Cypress, all three only blocks removed from St. Mary’s cemetery, Joseph and Aimee Guinotte’s final resting place Some likely wondered why the Town&Country frequently appeared. But to parents whose children had registered worrisome red-pin readings he became a Marine with a mission. In January a worried parent had approached the Town&Country. Lead Man, have you figured this out?

Polite but less than chatty, Mel responded. No, but thanks for asking, we’re not finished. He was hardly the first botanist to field poisonous metal inquiries, even 900 AD’s Nikander had been preceded by the originator of botany, Theophrastus., During the spring of 1978 Mel had aided a female geography professor named Natalie Burpus with her prized Gladstone boulevard-based azaleas. Natalie respected Mel as a scientist, not

only because of that, but on account of his diligence regarding the lead issue. Mel requested her help in accessing a newly-developed geographic information systems, G-I-S technique he had studied. It had already proven useful in pollutant source identification.

While her college-based G-I-S was only a node, it connected to a more powerful counterpart located in the National Geographic Society’s headquarters, Washington, D.C. Less than a week into the spring term, Natalie phoned Mel with encouraging news, explaining she had arranged for a short set of his red-pinned entries to be G-I-S analyzed by the National Geographic’s mainframe computer.

Mel’s adaptation of the dining room table as a G-I-S plotting board irritated his spouse. And why was he hanging an enormous map from their living room drapes. The next indication of progress came on a wintry morning when Mel left the car keys on their bedroom dresser, meaning the Town& Country was hers for Saturday shopping. Mel shared news with his spouse, Melanie, that recent G-I-S data suggested a fresh working hypothesis. And with that brief report, he walked to work.

Melanie drove the Town&Country to Skaggs, a store that had recently mailed a sales flyer for Coast anti-odor soap. As Melanie exited, a young mom accosted her. Aren’t you Lead Man’s wife?

While startled, Melanie answered in the affirmative. Yes. Young mom continued. I thought so, there’s only one Town&Country and us moms are grateful for your husband’s help.

If Mel were entering a more defined phase, the same wasn’t true in the Jarrell-Ash alcove. Each work day its hallway table collected multiple ice pails containing blood drawtubes, each entry necessitating a tedious Jarrell-Ash cycle.

Early in the city-wide project Brooklyn had established a special projects account to satisfy the Jarrell-Ash’s compressed gas and carbon tube electrode requirements. As invoices arrived, Office Lady speared newcomers onto an expanding stack. Each Friday she inverted the stack before satisfying invoices oldest-to-newest until the account was exhausted. Abandoning incoming calls to inform Racer the clipboard couldn’t accommodate any more invoices meant the special projects account was broke.

When Racer heard Mel’s footsteps approaching late that Saturday he reasoned Mel needed something. He was correct.

Would you show this list of 1930-era Kansas City names to your bicycle shop friend? I’m would be interested in what George Kern makes of these people’s origins.

Preoccupied with an off-scale plotter trace, Racer secured the note in a jersey pocket. Sure Prof, I’ll be happy to ask George.

With the trace under control, Racer ventured past lab issues. Prof, you could shorten your walk to work by investing in a three-speed bike, one to get you here in half the time.

Mel redirected. Three miles is three miles, road work done right. We were told the more we sweated in peace, the less we’d bleed in war, not true. Anyway, thanks for asking your friend, George Kern.

The Jarrell-Ash’s solenoid clicks constituted Racer’s sole diversion across the balance of the afternoon. Daylight had nearly disappeared by the time he secured the alcove and pedaled toward K-L-W. The day previously Racer had phoned George requesting they postpone their Shabbat by a day.

Two Shabbat candles awaited a book match strike. Rows of cold case meats lacking further cheese selections were diagonally cut, filling a crisp hoagie bun. George motioned Racer toward the lavatory, welcoming his younger friend to an hour in which they would likely critique their respective weeks.

Racer didn’t contribute to their Mitzvah-all-things-bicycle dialogue, choosing instead to describe his Jarrell-Ash efforts. We can’t keep up, George. Lead poisoning prevention may be important but the Jarrell-Ash laboratory isn’t funded to provide city-wide screening. No other hospital shares our commitment, why would they, we’re broke.

George interrupted. Racer, it sounds to me like you should predict which addresses or neighborhoods merit follow-up.

Racer retrieved a small graphite analysis tube. Handing it to George he watched his friend inspect the small cylinder, rolling it between his thumb and finger. Nice stuff, maybe somebody could make bike frames using it. This one appears to have been fired in a furnace, though.

Yes, to nearly 2000 degrees F. We fire these pricy fifty dollar cylinders through fewer than seventy-five cycles before each one requires replacement.

While Racer spoke, George gnawed the end of the brittle bun, dry crumbs shortly matching the velocity of animated speech. So processing fewer than seventy-five samples requires a fifty dollar replacement?

Racer nodded in the affirmative. Another reason why we’re broke.

Venturing past funding, Racer relayed Mel’s request. Our botany professor has learned of your Belgian heritage and has provided a list of early Kansas City names and addresses.

Racer then expanded on a seemingly unrelated issue. We’ve also completed a lead-in-teeth project for a dentist who believes deposited dental lead predicts learning and behavioral deficits. Racer then related a third, sadder entry, noting frank lead toxicity or plumbism as he described the condition in a baby girl named Renata.

Kern posed a question. Has your botanist friend matched high lead levels against addresses or neighborhoods?

Racer elaborated. Our highest readings, both red-pin sites and DeShario outliers match repeat offenders, successively rented although un-remediated structures.

Racer continued. Prof Mel and a geography colleague have correlated red-pin entries against what Mel terms piglet roof designs. George, do you know what he is talking about?

Signaling a turn-at-the-front, George grabbed the hoagie sandwich’s wrapper. Courtesy of a folding and a Kanawa tsugi tug or two, he shortly produced a paper pyramid.

Here came Kern. You say your botanist friend used old directories to match early residents against 1930-era addresses?

Racer. Yes, he said names sounded Belgian or maybe even Dutch, inquiring about their origins.

Kern fiddled with paper model. Again, what is the names’ source?

Racer took a turn. From 1930-era city directories and even older fire maps.

George delivered a read-aloud, one featuring strong Flemish intonations.

MERTENS, VERBEKE, BOSMANS, VERLINDEN, VERSCHUEREN, WUYTS, BOWERS, KERN, BOGAERTS, NOËL, PEETERS, JANSSEN, MAES, JACOBS .

While bicycle racing’s turns-at-the-front begin in an orderly fashion, as the finish line nears they become chaotic, frantic even.

So Racer, what do you make of them?

Racer. Maybe Dutch or Belgian heritage. I’ve verified none of them reside at our current red-pinned addresses. But George how could fifty year-old addresses inform 1980-era lead contamination problems/ Here came Kern. The Speedway’s surface was alternatively bumpy and oil-stained, the same true for boards originating there. Stains arose from multiple sources, engine crankcase leaks, exhaust gases and spilled fuels. Belgian predecessors lacked sufficient long-run lumber to support construction of Queen Anne or even hall-and-parlor designs, settling instead for simpler pyramidal also termed hiplet-roofed designs.

Chuckling, George tossed the paper model Racer’s way.

Racer then reached in a jersey pocket to retrieve second redpinned list, one he had authored and took a turn-at-the-front. But how does your pyramidal roof theory explain isolated red-pin - contaminated homes in mostly uncontaminated, green-pin neighborhoods?

George examined the second list, noting names more characteristic of persons of Mexican- or African-American ancestry, or even the newly-arrived Vietnamese.

GARCIA, RODRIQUEZ, MARTINEZ, WILLIAMS, JOHNSON, SMITH, VU Intellectually-speaking, dancing-on-pedals, here came Kern. The 1930s directories show where the houses were originally built, not where they sit today. Given urban renewal and cloverleaf displacements some were relocated to new addresses and unrelated neighborhoods. Racer, this list likely includes Speedway board homes relocated to what you are calling green-pin neighborhoods.

While multiple experts had sought to explain American’s recollections. Whether that reasoning required Shabbat candles or Hoagie buns remains unknown.

Kern the. outlined a plan. Let’s carve a sliver from the Million Dollar Speedway sign frame. I want to be present when you determine its

lead content using your Jarrell-Ash.. I’ll lock the shop. Grab your bike, Racer.

Coasting was hardly part of a protocol for two cyclists climbing Chestnut traffic way. While Sgt. Vince disapproved of their choice of dim leg lights he quietly folded in behind, repurposing his scout car as a protective shield against overtaking traffic.

Well into the grade, Vince noticed the leading rider was breathing hard, his mouth agape and jaw flung wide open. By comparison, the following cyclist, one a bit older, too, appeared relaxed, arms set low and elbows tucked tight.