California Getting the Lead Out

By Ed Joyce / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published August 20, 2008 at 1:01 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

California is one of the states getting the lead out - of wheel balancing weights. Studies have shown that when the lead-based wheel weights fall off cars and trucks they hurt water quality. That happ

California is one of the states getting the lead out - of wheel balancing weights. Studies have shown that when the lead-based wheel weights fall off cars and trucks they hurt water quality. That happens when the weights are ground down on the highways.

Caroline Cox with the Center for Environmental Health says the group has reached a legal agreement with Chrysler and the three largest producers of automobile wheel balancing weights.

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Cox: It's going to eliminate from California what's probably the largest unregulated source of lead right now. Nobody really thinks about wheel weights that much but they're on virtually every car and truck tire.

Cox says the company's are required to end the use of leaded wheel weights in California by the end of 2009.

The U.S. Geological Survey says about 65,000 tons of lead wheel weights are in use on cars and trucks in the U.S.

The settlement will end the annual release of 500,000 pounds of lead into the environment in California - which occurs when wheel weights break off of automobile wheels.

A study in 2000 found that lead pollution from wheel weights "is continuous, significant, and widespread, and is potentially a major source of human lead exposure."

Ed Joyce

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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