Ending the week on a particularly grim note, the State Department of Public Health released a new analysis Friday that shows that children living within a mile of the site of the former Exide battery recycling plant in Vernon have significantly higher amounts of lead in their blood than those living farther away. The study found that 3.58 percent of these children had elevated lead levels in their system, as opposed to 2.41 percent living within 4.5 miles of the facility and 1.95 percent in all of Los Angeles County, as reported by the LA Times .