For the first time in 30 years, U.S. regulators strengthened air-quality standards for allowable levels of lead in air, saying it would help protect the health of children.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday it will tighten airborne lead levels by 90 percent to 0.15 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air. Metal smelters, iron and steel foundries and battery makers are the primary sources of lead, said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.

"Lead levels around the country have plummeted since lead came out of gasoline," O'Donnell said in an interview. "There's still higher-than-desired levels in many places" in the United States.

Levels of airborne lead nationwide have fallen almost 97 percent since 1980, primarily after lead was removed from gasoline, according to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. More than 1,300 tons of lead are emitted into the air each year, the EPA said.

"In tightening the lead standard by 90 percent, I relied upon the recommendations of EPA staff and the science of more than 6,000 studies since 1990," Johnson said on a conference call. "This action will improve public health, especially for children."

Lead is a neurotoxin that interferes with a child's brain development. Exposure to even low levels of lead in the air may lead to developmental damage, including lower IQ levels. Exposure later in life can increase risks of cardiovascular illness and mortality.

The Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee, a panel that advises the EPA, recommended 0.02 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air. The previous standard of 1.5 micrograms was set in 1978 when children's average blood lead levels were seven times higher than today, John Balbus, chief health scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement.

"While EPA's own analysis justifies an even lower lead standard, this tenfold reduction will go a long way to protecting children most at risk from airborne lead," Balbus, who is also a member of the EPA Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee, said. "It's refreshing to see the agency follow the science and the advice of its experts in making this decision."

Regulations since 1978 have nearly eliminated the use of lead in fuels and paints. Lead smelters, such as one in Jefferson County, Mo., are the largest sources of lead emissions, the Manhattan-based Environmental Defense Fund said. >>>>

Man charged with bringing pipe bomb on airplane

A Las Vegas man attempted to bring a pipe bomb on board a jet at Long Island MacArthur Airport yesterday morning, federal officials said in court documents.

The suspected pipe bomb that was found in Steven Nobles' baggage "could have functioned. It could have detonated," federal prosecutor John Durham said at Nobles' arraignment in U.S. District Court in Central Islip late yesterday afternoon.

But Nobles' attorney, federal public defender Randi Chavis, said Nobles, 20, had not intended to harm anyone and inadvertently placed the device in his luggage as he was returning to visit his mother after a year of working on Long Island.

Sources familiar with the investigation said that at this point federal prosecutors and FBI agents do not believe Nobles was bent on terrorism, but, at the very least, displayed poor judgment.

Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for Eastern District U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell, said it was not clear whether the bomb could have gone off accidentally. FBI agents and Suffolk police were still analyzing the device, Nardoza said.

Federal prosecutor Durham argued that Nobles should be denied bail.

Federal magistrate Kathleen Tomlinson denied bail to Nobles, pending a hearing today, saying Nobles "certainly was old enough to take into the account the circumstances under which he was operating this morning."

According to a complaint filed by FBI agent James McCarthy, Nobles was stopped at 7:28 a.m. by Transportation Security Administration officers during a routine search when they noticed a 7-inch-long knife in his carry-on bag. Nobles was preparing to board Southwest Flight 384 to Las Vegas.

After searching Nobles' bag, the officers then noticed the bomb, McCarthy said.

Suffolk Police and the FBI were called and part of the airport was temporarily evacuated.

A search of Nobles' luggage found "explosive fireworks, electrical circuit boards, a battery with electrical tape and 14 . . . .22-caliber rounds used in a nailgun to drive nails into concrete," McCarthy said.

McCarthy said in the complaint that Nobles told him that "the device in the carry-on bag was a pipe bomb." Nobles also said he "built the pipe bomb using a metal pipe, fuses and gunpowder from M-80 fireworks, smoke bombs and other fireworks," McCarthy said. In addition, the agent said Nobles told him he hoped that when the device went off it would "cause a giant smoke cloud, a flash of light and hopefully a loud noise," McCarthy said.

However, Nobles "denied intending to detonate the pipe bomb on the airplane and claimed that he had inadvertently carried it to the airport," McCarthy said.

In addition to being charged with bringing a pipe bomb on an airplane, Nobles was also charged with bringing fireworks on an airplane, which are considered explosive or incendiary devices under federal law, and a concealed weapon, the knife. Nobles faces up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted.

Nobles' stepsister, Alexandria Stills, said whatever Nobles was doing, he would never intentionally hurt anyone.

"I'm sure Steven is giving the police his information. He's a good kid," said Stills, 20, of Central Islip. "I don't think that he had anything to do with any type of bomb. He does electrical work. I'm thinking that whatever he had in his bag was related to his work."

ROBERT E. KESSLER

Breathing healthier air

This is in response to "Our toxic air; Chicago-area residents face some of the highest risks of getting sick from pollution, but the EPA isn't making it widely known" (Page 1, Sept. 29). The story may leave some readers with the alarming impression that Cook County has the nation's worst air pollution. That is not the case.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency doesn't dispute that the Chicago metropolitan area has persistent air pollution problems with significant implications for public health. However, EPA's comprehensive air quality data—which factor in all emissions from cars, trucks and other sources in addition to those from industry—clearly show Chicago's air pollution is about average for a big city.

Reducing air pollution in Chicago and other big cities is a work in progress. Ratcheting down the levels of hazardous air pollutants is a priority for EPA. In the Chicago area, air-monitoring data show that pollutants such as lead, manganese and nickel have declined over the last 15 years.

Another EPA priority is enforcing the strict limits set by our air permits and we have been vigilant in doing so. In the last three years alone, EPA enforcement actions against violators in Illinois and northwest Indiana have reduced 15 million pounds a year of hazardous air pollution.

There is more work to be done before Chicagoans can breathe the cleaner, healthier air they deserve. EPA is committed to continuing our work with help from our partners in Illinois and the city. The EPA database cited in the Tribune story is a useful screening tool that helps us to focus efforts to address hazardous air pollutants. Another EPA database that addresses Chicago's air quality can be found on EPA's Web site at http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/nata1999/index.html.

Lynn Buhl

E.P.A. Toughens Standard on Lead Emissions; Change Is the First in 3 Decades

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday set stringent new standards for airborne lead particles, following the recommendations of its science advisers and cutting the maximum allowable concentrations to a tenth of the previous standard. It was the first change in federal lead standards in three decades.

But the cleanup of areas with excessive lead levels is not required for more than eight years, and the system of monitors that detect the toxic contaminant is frayed. Currently, 133 monitors are in operation nationwide, down from about 800 in 1980, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, Cathy Milbourn, said. The agency is working on rebuilding this network, to include more than 300 monitors, Ms. Milbourn said.

The new standards set the limits for exposure at 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, down from 1.5 micrograms, and well within the outer limit of 0.2 micrograms recommended by the advisers.

The agency’s administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said in a statement, “With these stronger standards, a new generation of Americans are being protected from harmful lead emissions.”

Mr. Johnson’s usual critics in environmental groups offered uncharacteristic words of praise. “This is a great step in the right direction,” said Gina Solomon, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But Robert N. Steinwurtzel, a lawyer for the Association of Battery Recyclers, a group of six companies that use a smelting process to disassemble and recycle as many as 115 million car batteries annually, called the new standard problematic. “It potentially threatens the viability of the lead recycling industry,” Mr. Steinwurtzel said.

Association officials traveled to the White House earlier this month to plead their case for a less stringent standard. Battery recyclers, along with utilities, cement kilns and metalworking shops, are the major emitters of airborne lead.

Lead’s toxicity has been recognized for more than a century; the metal is associated with the impairment of neural development in infants and young children, and with cardiovascular disease and premature death in older people.

For more than 30 years, federal, state and local governments have tried to reduce exposure, by controlling industrial emissions, removing lead from gasoline and mounting campaigns to remove lead-based paint from homes. Some of the highest lead levels in blood can be found in children in older cities like Philadelphia, Providence, R.I., and Cleveland.

Bruce P. Lanphear, a professor in the health sciences department at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia who is an expert on lead toxicity, welcomed the agency’s decision to follow the recommendations of its science advisers.

The new standard, Professor Lanphear said, “will make a difference, but won’t lead to dramatic reductions” in blood-lead levels of younger children, which are now 80 percent to 95 percent lower than they were in the 1970s. Improvements in blood-lead levels had “begun to plateau” in recent years, he added, and the new standard could result in renewed progress.

FELICITY BARRINGER