A national wildlife organization says that 10,000 Laysan albatross chicks will die each year from lead poisoning on Midway Atoll if the federal government doesn't immediately launch a major cleanup of lead paint contamination there.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it is doing all it can with limited funds, but the American Bird Conservancy says it's not nearly enough. It said researchers are finding "shockingly high lead concentrations" in the blood of chicks nesting near the dozens of buildings that are peeling ancient layers of lead-based paint.

"Federal funds are urgently needed to clean up this toxic mess to protect the Laysan albatross as well as future visitors to the new marine national monument," said George Fenwich, conservancy president.

Midway is the world's largest Laysan albatross colony, and they nest on virtually every flat surface on the atoll's three islands, including next to old buildings. The chicks peck at and eat bits of debris, including paint chips, as they wait for their parents to return with food. Those that swallow a lot of paint chips can have lead concentrations so high that it leads to neurological problems.

"Many Laysan chicks that nest within approximately 15 feet of building structures exhibit a condition referred to as 'droopwing,' which commonly manifests itself in the chicks' inability to raise their wings, which drag on the ground, resulting in broken bones and open sores," the conservancy said. The organization estimates that 10,000 chicks each year — about 5 percent of Midway's 200,000 Laysan albatross young — will die.

"This level of mortality in Laysan chicks hinders efforts to conserve this species and could have population-level impacts," said Jennifer Arnold of the American Bird Conservancy.

The conservancy said $5.6 million is needed to deal with the lead-paint issue immediately. The sum is the Department of Interior's estimate for the cost to strip lead paint from all the atoll's 95 buildings, and to sift sand around the buildings to remove paint chips, it said.

"Since two-thirds of the 95 buildings will never be used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, after lead-paint abatement, they should be torn down and removed from the island," the conservancy said.

Fish and Wildlife Service specialist Barbara Maxfield said the agency, which operates the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, is working on it.

"We are removing the lead-based paint from some of the historic houses. We're taking it in smaller bites than the American Bird Conservancy would like to see, but that also allows us to accomplish something with fewer dollars. We'll probably do it in the hundreds of thousands (rather than millions of dollars)."

The process will take two to four years, she said. The service plans to clean up as many buildings as possible. The service also plans to excavate chip-contaminated soil from around the buildings, in an area 15 feet from the buildings and six inches down. The soil will be replaced with clean beach sand, she said.

At a few historic but structurally unsound buildings, like the old concrete Commercial Pacific Cable Company buildings, the Fish and Wildlife Service plans to replace contaminated soil but not to work on the buildings because of safety concerns.

Maxfield said the service has identified 950,000 square feet of surfaces with lead-based paint, and in the first four months of the cleanup program has finished work on 73,000 square feet of them.

The American Bird Conservancy has approached the Department of Interior — the Fish and Wildlife Service's parent agency — and urged it to include cleanup funds in the 2008 federal budget.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.