The blaze that nearly destroyed Paris’ most famous cathedral has revealed a gap in global safety regulations for lead dust. Lead is a toxic building material in many historic cities.
Notre Dame Cathedral is lit up in Paris, Monday, Dec. 16, 2019. The Notre Dame Cathedral has been newly illuminated last month since the April fire in 2019.
Poisoning from lead dust can cause permanent loss to cognitive ability, seizures, coma, or death — and exposure is of greatest risk to pregnant mothers and to young children, who can easily transfer toxic dust into their mouths. “The authorities basically tried to create safety guidelines after the fire by piecing together a mixture of old fragments of data and reports,” Souyris said. “But there was really nothing official ... we simply didn’t realize that lead outside might be a problem.”
New legislation for hazard safety in Britain following the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire also did not cover lead-dust hazards. The U.K. Environment Ministry told AP it doesn’t “have a specific threshold for unsafe lead dust levels in the U.K. in public places.” It said the hazard focus after Grenfell, an apartment building constructed in the 1970s, “was more on asbestos than lead due to the age of the building.
It took four months for the city to complete a deep-clean operation of the sidewalks even as tourists, residents and merchants walked streets around the cathedral daily. “Preservation does make Paris unusual,” said Neil M. Donahue, a chemistry professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg. “Incineration of one of the most famous roofs in the world may be especially dramatic, but there is no alchemy in this world. Lead will remain lead forever.”
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