A lot of folks in the Bay Area know the "mothball fleet." You can spot the aging Navy and merchant vessels as you drive over the Benicia bridge (check out our Google Map here to see the fleet). Most of them are waiting to be recycled – and they've been waiting for quite some time.

As I talk about in Monday's radio story, a lawsuit over these ships was finally settled this week. At issue was the paint flaking off the hulls of the ships.  After so many  years, it's weathered and fallen into Suisun Bay. That's a problem because the paint contains toxic metals like lead, cadmium, and copper. A study in 2007 found that more than 20 tons of these metals had fallen into the bay, which is a critical habitat for some endangered species.

The fleet, managed by the US Maritime Administration (MARAD), is meant to be a temporary holding ground for these ships, but a stalemate in recent years made it a bit more permanent. Since the closest ship recycling facility is in Brownsville, Texas, the ships must be towed there through the Panama Canal. But before they leave the bay, the marine growth on the hulls has to be removed to prevent the spread of invasive species. As we reported in a QUEST TV story a few years ago, MARAD wanted to do that cleaning in Suisun Bay.  The San Francisco Bay Water Quality Control Board ruled that method would release even more pollution.

Two things have happened in the meantime. First, in January, a judge ruled that the fleet was in violation of the Clean Water Act. Second, a new administration entered the White House.  As several people I spoke to mentioned, it lead to a noticeable thawing in relations.  As a sign of that, MARAD began moving a few ships out for recycling last fall.

The worst polluting ships will be removed by the fall of 2012, with all 52 ships under the settlement removed by 2017. (For more on the settlement, check out this blog post by NRDC's attorney Michael Wall). Where they'll be recycled is another issue. Instead of having the ships go to Texas, many would like to see them recycled here in the Bay Area. One company is currently working to open two dry docks on Mare Island in Vallejo. But since it's a former Naval facility, they're having some trouble getting permitted. In the meantime, the only work going on in the Bay Area will be the hull cleaning. Check out the slideshow below for more on that.

Listen to the Ghost Fleet On the Move radio report online.

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The paint on this piggy bank tested for lead at 7253 parts per million (ppm); that is 11 times higher than the legal limit for lead paint.

Editor's Note: This week we have the first of two special reports on lead.

As a parent, there is a lot to worry about when it comes to the safety of my kids. Lead wasn't high on my list. Lead poisoning in children has dropped significantly in recent decades since the ban on lead-based paint in homes and the phase-out of leaded gasoline. Then came the record toy recalls of 2007, where millions of imported items coated in lead paint and made by household names like Mattel and Fisher Price violated the 30-year-old lead law.

Suddenly, parents, including me, eyed the toys in our homes and on store shelves with suspicion. Extensive research links lead exposure in children to lower IQ scores, neurological and behavioral problems, even anemia.

The toy recalls prompted congress to pass the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.

The Act not only lowers limits for lead and bans certain kinds of phthalates–it makes manufacturers and distributors accountable for products sold to American consumers by requiring items to be certified by third-party labs. But the testing, or certification piece of the Act, was postponed for a year. That raised a lot of questions for me as a reporter and as a parent.

I contacted the Center for Environmental Health, which researches lead, and other toxics, in consumer items and has sued manufacturers and distributors for violating standards.

CEH and KQED were interested in looking at what's sold at discount chains and 99 cent stores because of the history of previous recalls. CEH, through its regular spot testing, also thought that many of the larger retail outlets seem to have improved their process to weed out lead in children's items after the 2007 recalls.

I got some tips from CEH about potentially problematic products to look for. We purchased about 200 items and then CEH did the first round of testing using an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) device. The XRF is a handy tool used by a lot of commercial lead inspectors. It shoots high-energy x-rays at the item and sends back a chemical analysis, including the lead content.

Most items that exceeded the lead limits (600 parts per million) set by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act using the XRF device were then sent to a federally-accredited lab, MACS in Hayward, for detailed testing. At the lab, the parts or components that exceeded the lead limits were cut or scraped off and dissolved in an acid solution. Then tests were run to determine the lead content.

View a slide show of several of the items that violate the new lead limits below. We've also put together a list of items that violate the new lead limits, along with the test results.

So how can parents keep leaded toys away from kids? In addition to avoiding vinyl products, stay away from metal jewelry.

If you can, choose natural wood toys instead of painted items, especially if they are in yellow. Check the recall list posted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Many companies sell home lead test kits for consumer products. They're not 100-percent reliable and can give false negatives-and false positives too. If you're really concerned about your child's lead level, the best thing to do is to get a blood lead test.

Listen to the Playing with Lead – Part 1 radio report online.

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Artificial Turf. Credit: Anthony V. Thompson

And that's just the beginning. Lead has been found in venetian blinds, in pens, in the glaze of ceramic cups and bowls. It has been found in imported candies. And one Mexican folk remedy to cure stomachaches has landed a number of children in the hospital recently – a packet of powder that is almost entirely lead.

Since the effects of lead are cumulative, all those points of contamination add up.

Children's developing brains and central nervous systems are most susceptible to damage from ingesting lead. That's why a new federal standard for lead in children's products was recently put in place. And that's why the Center for Environmental Health, for one, focuses on products that come in contact with children on a daily basis.

The amount of lead in artificial turf, by itself, is unlikely to cause lead poisoning. And the same is true for the amount of lead found in lunch boxes, or in children's jewelry. But medical experts say that if kids play on artificial turf in the morning, distractedly put a charm bracelet in their mouths during class, and eat food from a lunch box with lead embedded in the vinyl – then those kids are at risk for lead impairment, such as a loss of IQ points, a sign of brain damage. For more, listen to the QUEST Radio story, or check our photos below.

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