Environment | Daily Report

Flickr photo by Paul SandhamAttorney General Jerry Brown's lawsuit targets unsafe levels of lead detected in bounce houses.

If visions of broken legs and whiplash isn’t enough for anxious parents watching kids romp in a giant, vinyl air-filled castle, California’s Attorney General has another nightmare scenario to add to the list: lead exposure.

Jerry Brown’s office filed suit Wednesday against nine manufacturers, distributors and renters of children’s bounce houses, claiming the vinyl structures contain unsafe levels of lead.

“Every single bounce house we rented, except for one, had high levels of lead,” said Charles Margulis, spokesman for the Center for Environmental Health.

Margulis said the levels ranged from 10 to more than 70 times the federal limit for lead in children’s products under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.

The Oakland-based environmental organization, which also filed suit, performed the testing.

There is no safe limit for lead. And although the tested levels are not high enough to cause acute lead poisoning, they do add to a child’s lead burden. Lead is associated with lowered IQ and learning disabilities in exposed children.

“Kids at birthday parties can spend hours playing in bounce houses,” said the attorney general in a press statement. “The goal of our lawsuit is to eliminate any chance they will be exposed to lead while they’re jumping around having a good time.”

According to Brown, the suit is intended to force bounce house companies to stop using lead-containing vinyl; warn consumers; and require party places and rental companies to post warnings.

The companies listed on the complaint are: Bay Area Jump, Cutting Edge Creations, Funtastic Factory, Magic Jump, Leisure Activities Co., Thrillworks, The Inflatable Store, Jump for Fun Inc., and Jump for Fun National Inc.

“We don’t have a comment,” said Barnie Race, CEO of Bay Area Jump. “We don’t manufacture them. We don’t sell them. We just rent them out. “

Bay Area Jump is the one bounce house rental company on the list. The others are manufacturers and distributors.

“It’s like suing Hertz for Toyota’s faulty brakes,” Race said. He said he couldn’t believe he was being sued. “I thought it was a joke.”

The primary exposure pathway for lead in a bounce house is hand-to-mouth. The child's hand picks up lead from the vinyl and then it gets into his or her mouth when eating or chewing fingernails.

Meg Whitman’s spokeswoman, Sarah Pompei, was unimpressed with the lawsuit:

There’s something very ironic about Jerry Brown, of all people, investigating the combination of hot air and make-believe.