Copyright National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials May/Jun 2001 Despite substantial progress over the past two decades, lead poisoning remains one of the foremost environmental health hazards facing young children in the United States. Lead poisoning in childhood can have lifelong consequences, including learning disabilities, loss of IQ attention deficit, and behavior problems. In many low-income neighborhoods with dilapidated older housing, more than one third of preschool children are still poisoned by lead today. Remodeling and renovation projects that inadvertently create lead dust hazards also put middle- and upper-income families' children at risk. No effective medical treatment exists for lead poisoning; the only solution to this preventable disease is to control lead hazards in children's environments.
Lead-based paint is the primary source of high-dose exposures to U.S. children, burdening 38 million housing units built before 1978, according to HUD's year 2000 national survey, and threatening housing affordability as well as children's health. Over the past decade, research and experience in communities across the country have greatly increased understanding of the sources and pathways of lead exposure and demonstrated the effectiveness of various control measures. This recent knowledge calls into question whether the current approach of ceding responsibility for lead safety in housing to a relatively few "lead experts" can achieve the national goal of eliminating childhood lead poisoning by 2010. Many lead poisoning prevention experts and advocates believe that the housing industry also needs to make lead-safe work practices an integral part of regular maintenance, paint repair, and remodeling projects in older properties.
The challenge of lead-based paint
Lead is a heavy metal that is extremely toxic to human organs and systems when ingested or inhaled. Lead-based paint is by far the highest source of lead in children's environments, with some paints sold in the 1930s and 1940s containing as much as 50 percent lead by dry weight or 500,000 parts per million. In contrast, a 400 parts per million standard is frequently used for clearing up lead in soil at Superfund sites. The United States did not ban lead in residential paint until 1978, about 50 years after many other countries enacted regulations. As a result, almost 40 percent of our entire housing stock is burdened by lead-based paint. Properties built before 1950 are much more likely to have leadbased paint, higher concentrations of lead in paint, and lead-based paint on more surfaces.
For decades, lead-based paint in tens of millions of housing units across the country has challenged property owners, health officials, physicians, contractors, lenders, insurers, real estate agents, legislators, and the legal system-not to mention lead-poisoned children, their parents, and teachers. The national approach to lead poisoning has evolved in stages over the last 25 years. It has expanded from treating children with extreme symptoms, to reacting to children found to have elevated blood lead levels, to responding to the presence of lead-based paint, to regulating activities aimed at making properties lead-safe.
In 1992, Congress passed a comprehensive federal lead-poisoning law that focused concerted action on controlling lead hazards with the goal of making all housing lead-safe. Among other things, this law also authorized a categorical lead-hazard control grant program at HUD, directed the overhaul of HUD's lead safety regulations for properties receiving federal funds, directed EPA and the states to establish quality controls on lead inspection and the abatement industry, and required property owners and their agents to disclose information about leadbased paint and lead hazards to prospective buyers and tenants.
Important lessons learned
Since 1992, HUD's Lead Hazard Control Grants Program has helped more than 100 communities around the country gain first-hand experience in dealing with lead-based paint. At the same time, EPA and HUD studies have validated assessment tools and protocols and demonstrated the effectiveness of a range of hazard control strategies. National health surveillance studies, local blood lead screening data, and a recent survey of lead-based paint hazards in housing have deepened the understanding of the problem at hand. This substantial body of research and experience has fundamentally changed our understanding of lead safety in the residential environment and illuminated the following conclusions:
* The risk for lead poisoning varies enormously across the housing stock. Well-maintained properties with intact paint rarely poison a child. On the other hand, properties with extensive deteriorated lead-based paint typically pose immediate hazards to children.
* Visual inspections for signs of paint deterioration are an important lead hazard control tool.
* While lead-based paint is the major source of lead poisoning, lead-contaminated dust is the foremost pathway of exposure and the best predictor of risk. Lead dust settles on floors and other surfaces and gets on children's hands and toys and then in their mouths.
* Lead dust contamination comes from deteriorated lead-based paint, paint repair and renovation work that disturbs lead-based paint, and lead particles that are tracked in from outdoors. Simple paint repair projects using conventional scraping and sanding techniques can generate high levels of lead dust.
| EVOLUTION OF APPROACHES TO LEASED PAINT IN HOUSING |
* All those who repair or disturb lead-based paint need to follow safe work practices and control, contain, and clean up leadcontaminated dust.
* Because lead dust can be invisible, dust testing is the only way to be sure that hazards are not left behind to poison a child. Lead dust is measured by wipe samples that environmental laboratories generally analyze at a cost of $5 to $10 per sample.
Calibrating the response to the problem
Because the risk to children living in properties that contain lead-based paint varies enormously, lead-safety tools and delivery systems need to be calibrated to the specifics of the situation. Inevitably, a one-size-fitsall approach will squander resources on properties that pose little or no risk, providing insufficient protection to high-risk properties or delaying their identification and slowing cleanup.
According to HUD's recent national housing survey, 13 million units that contain lead-based paintabout one-third of the lead-burdened stock-pose no lead hazards. The prescription for these units is good maintenance and regular repainting to keep paint intact, and lead-safe work practices to avoid lead dust hazards during remodeling.
This same HUD survey estimates that some 25 million units contain at least one condition meeting established criteria for lead hazards. It is clear, however, that most of these units are not poisoning children. If they were, lead poisoning rates would be far higher.
Based on national health statistics, the Alliance Th End Childhood Lead Poisoning estimates that 3 million to 5 million housing units likely pose severe health threats to children. For these highest-risk properties, the challenge is to identify deteriorated paint and lead dust hazards before exposure occurs, greatly expand resources, and target action to make these units safe (or demolish and replace them). For the remaining 20 million or so "moderate-risk" units, the challenge is to safely repair deteriorated paint, take safeguards against lead dust hazards, and improve and maintain property condition through lead-safe rehab and maintenance to prevent more serious lead hazards from developing.
Taking lead safety to scale
The critical question facing the housing and renovation industries is who is going to address lead safety in housing and with what level of training and credentials. Currently, lead safety in housing is a highly specialized field in which a relatively few certified lead experts perform intensive lead abatement in about 20,000 high-risk units each year. Outside of these dedicated abatement projects, lead safety receives little attention, as most of the contractors who perform some 18 million remodeling projects each year in pre-1978 properties may not understand the dangers of lead dust.
Extensive and severe hazards require a certified lead-abatement contractor, but most lead-based paint experts and practitionersalong with the federal government-now agree that lead-safe work practices also need to be integrated into everyday housing activities, including property maintenance, turnover treatments, paint repair, remodeling, renovation, and rehab projects.
HUD and EPA have developed and approved several training courses in lead-safe work practices for maintenance staff, painters, and rehab contractors. HUD is currently subsidizing these courses to make them widely available at little or no cost. While these short courses do not certify trainees as lead experts or abatement contractors, they teach the modest changes in work practices that are needed to control, contain, and clean up lead dust during maintenance, paint repair, and remodeling work. These developments have set the stage for a shift in approach to integrate lead-safe work practices into painting and remodeling practice.
Lead safety in federally assisted housing
On Sept. 15, 2000, HUD's new lead-safety regulation-as directed by the 1992 federal lead law-replaced the maze of pre-existing requirements related to lead-based paint with requirements tailored to the type, duration, and amount of federal housing assistance. This regulation addresses lead safety in paint repair and rehab work in virtually all pre-1978 residential properties receiving HUD funds. Because much of the country faced a shortage in painters and remodelers who were trained in lead-safe work practices as well as certified in lead disciplines, HUD has offered local governments and states a "transition period" to implement the regulation.
During FY 2001, the department has committed more than $100 million to pay for lead inspections, clearance testing, and to make training in lead-safe work practices widely available at little or no cost. Based on the extension of the transition period for local and state agencies to comply with the rule, HUD now expects full implementation of the rule on Aug. 10, 2001.
To the extent permitted by the statute, HUD's lead-safety regulation allows property owners and responsible agencies alternative approaches for compliance. In most situations, the rule does not mandate lead inspections. The rule's overarching objective is to ensure that peeling paint and its causes are repaired using safe work practices and that lead dust hazards are not left behind. Permanent abatement is required only in limited situations: public housing developments undergoing comprehensive modernization and units receiving more than $25,000 in federal rehabilitation assistance.
The rule's requirements for when to use certified lead experts also are limited. For example, unless abatement is required, contractors doing rehab projects funded by Community Development Block Grants and HOME can meet lead-safety requirements either by having workers trained in lead-safe work practices (a four-to-eight-hour course) or having the project supervisor trained and certified as an abatement supervisor (four days of training).
HUD's regulation places strong emphasis on lead dust controls, including universal requirements for clearance testing after rehab or paint repair projects. Clearance testing provides a low-cost performancebased standard to document that lead dust hazards are not left behind. To expand capacity for clearance testing, EPA created a new one-day "sampling technician" course, and HUD is now subsidizing delivery of this training. Before, only certified lead inspectors and risk assessors could perform clearance testing. Now, sampling technicians certified by a state or supervised by a certified risk assessor or inspector can clear most HUD-funded rehabs after non-abatement work.
Several states now certify sampling technicians or are developing regulations to do so. At press time, New Hampshire, Maine, and Wisconsin certified sampling technicians, and Vermont was working on regulations for certification. Local community development agencies and housing authorities can contract out for clearance testing or train their own staffs and qualify them as "sampling technicians." Housing quality inspectors and code inspectors could also be trained and sample for lead dust hazards when deteriorated paint is identified and after it is repaired.
Rehab threatened
While HUD's regulation sets the stage for integrating lead safety into rehab and paint repair projects, a substantial barrier remains that could significantly discourage federally funded housing rehabilitation. Contrary to the approach envisioned by HUD's rule, some lead-safety regulators are maintaining that most federally funded rehab work, including such commonly performed activities as window replacement, constitutes "lead abatement."
Such state requirements have no basis in federal law or regulation. Apparently, some state regulators believe that requiring abatement contractors to do all rehab work will provide greater protection for children's health.
In fact, requiring the use of certified lead abatement contractors for all rehab projects would usually in practice disrupt and prolong projects, increase their cost, and reduce the number of units rehabbed in areas with few certified abatement contractors, an unfortunate outcome that would hurt affordable housing and ultimately set back children's health. Many lead poisoning prevention experts and advocates believe teaching maintenance staff, painters, and remodelers how to control, contain, and clean up lead dust, as HUD's regulation envisions, is the only way to advance prevention on a broad scale to make lead-safe housing a reality.
In line with this belief, advocates have called for EPA to join HUD in making clear to state regulatory agencies that classifying rehab work as "lead abatement" is inappropriate and counterproductive. Local governments, housing providers, children's health advocates, and affordable housing advocates can help by educating state regulators about the critical need for efficient systems for rehabilitating affordable housing. In most states, this problem can be solved by interpretive guidance, although a few states may need to revise regulations, and at least one state (Ohio) needs to reform its state law.
Leza liability
Some housing providers and local governments have expressed fears that HUD's lead safety regulation will increase their legal liability. In fact, lead-based paint in housing has posed significant legal liability concerns for decades for rental property owners, housing authorities, and others.
An underlying problem has been lack of clarity about what maintenance practices and lead-safety measures constitute the "standard of care." HUD's lead safety regulation makes explicit the steps that owners of properties receiving federal assistance need to take and provides a low-cost means of documenting successful completion through clearance testing.
HUD's regulation is an important first step toward making lead-safe painting the national norm, as painters and remodelers who are trained in lead-safe work practices for federally funded work can apply these skills to reduce lead hazards in privately funded projects.
Next steps
There are many ways that the housing, apartment, painting, and remodeling industries can integrate lead safety into standard practice and address the reality of lead-based paint in older housing. Local govements, multifamily housing providers, and trade associations can endorse lead-safe work practices and include performance-based lead-safety criteria in contract specifications.
In addition, agencies and associations can offer free training in leadsafe work practices to rehab contractors, maintenance workers, and in-house staff. These groups can work together with lead poisoning prevention advocates to overcome state regulatory obstacles that threaten rehab and make clearance testing more difficult and costly than necessary.
In the same way, effective collaboration of advocates for affordable housing and children's health could make healthy housing a national priority and win greatly increased resources to subsidize rents and upgrade substandard properties. There are currently pending lawsuits against lead paint manufacturers. Cities and states could secure additional resources and participate in these legal actions. As state and local governments gain experience in implementing HUD's lead-safety regulation, changes to the federal statute may also be needed to ensure lead safety's cost-effective integration into maintenance, paint repair, and rehab on a broad scale.
| [Author Affiliation] |
| Don Ryan, MURP, is executive director of the Washington, D.C.based Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning. He can be reached at 202/543-1147 or via e-mail at dryan@aeclp.org. |
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