EPA Proposes Regulating Home Renovations

The federal agency wants lead-paint rules for repairs to homes built before 1978, regulations that contractors say will sharply raise the price for renovations.
By: Sara Schaefer Munoz: The Wall Street Journal Online
In an effort to reduce lead poisoning in children, the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a broad rule requiring contractors working on homes built before 1978 to use lead-safe work practices.

The proposal, published Jan. 10 in the Federal Register, would create the first nationwide requirements covering the way contractors perform routine renovations and clean up afterward. For any work that could disturb lead-based paint - including removing paint, taking down wallpaper or replacing windows - contractors would have to take various steps to minimize clients' exposure, including using special vacuums, sealing off work areas and posting warning signs.

A wider swath of the population has become concerned about the health hazards of lead paint amid a recent renovation boom, with Americans fixing up hundred-year-old Victorian homes in gentrifying urban neighborhoods and expanding midcentury split-levels in the suburbs. Lead poisoning is a potential hazard in any home built before 1978, the year when lead paint was banned. About 65% of current U.S. housing stock was built before 1978, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Renovations of older homes can stir up lead dust that can be ingested or inhaled. Children are particularly vulnerable, because they absorb lead more readily than adults and are more likely to put dusty hands in their mouths.

The National Association of Home Builders says some members estimate the rule could boost the price of home renovations by 25% for consumers, because of expenses for insurance, training and equipment. The EPA estimates that the rule would cost the industry approximately $5 million a year.

If the rule is finalized in its current form, it could change the way many contractors work. At least one contractor on a work site would have to be EPA-certified in lead-safe work practices and would have to train workers on the site. Currently, general contractors involved in routine remodeling are required under federal law to give families an EPA pamphlet on how to protect themselves from lead-paint hazards during renovations.

While responsible remodelers usually take steps to minimize dust exposure, like sealing off the work area, "the average contractor does nothing, because there is no hard and fast rule on it," says Mike Nagel, president of Remodel One, a Roselle, Ill. design and remodeling firm. "They just go in and start replacing windows and knocking out walls."

The proposed rule comes as the $500 billion remodeling industry is starting to soften. According to the most recent data from the Commerce Department, spending on home improvements was down 4.1% in November from the previous month.

But some homeowners think the rule for contractors is a good idea. After 34-year-old Leslie Trundy started taking down plaster and removing wallpaper in her 1830s-era home in Bath, Maine, she decided to have her 15-month-old son tested for lead. Her son's blood lead levels were at 18 micrograms per deciliter, which health experts consider elevated.

Ms. Trundy has since had a certified lead-abatement firm replace window casings and doors and seal surfaces to minimize further risk. She says her son's blood levels have dropped. "It was only after he tested high that I really found out how much danger that put him in," says Ms. Trundy. "In hindsight, had we known, we would have quarantined the area off."

More than 300,000 children in the U.S. have elevated levels of lead in their blood, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can affect children's nervous systems, causing reduced IQ and learning disabilities. In large doses, it can cause blindness, convulsions and death. Lead exposure in pregnant women can affect fetal development and cause miscarriages.

Elevated levels are widely defined as 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood or higher, according to the CDC, but no safe levels have been established, according to Mary Jean Brown, chief of the center's lead poisoning prevention branch. Levels as low as two micrograms per deciliter have been known to affect children's school performance, she said.

Still, it is unclear how many children nationally get lead poisoning from remodeling jobs. Data collected by state health workers in Maine from 2001-2003 showed that 62% of children who had lead-blood levels of 20 micrograms per deciliter or higher were in homes with recent or ongoing renovations.

The likelihood a home contains lead-based paint varies with the home's age. According to a 2002 survey by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, just 24% of housing built between 1960 and 1977 contains lead-based paint, while it is found in 69% of housing built between 1940 and 1959 and in 87% of housing built before 1940. HUD researchers also found that housing in the Northeast and the Midwest had about twice the prevalence of lead-paint hazards compared with housing in the South and West.

While contractors laud the goal of reducing children's exposure to lead-based paint, they say the proposed rule is too sweeping. The National Association of Home Builders is studying whether routine jobs, such as window replacement, could pose a lead-paint risk, and plans to submit its findings to the EPA. "It's a question of whether EPA is painting with too broad a brush," says Gary Suskauer, the association's environmental policy analyst.

Contractors are also concerned that working under the assumption that lead is present will require expensive liability insurance, on top of costs related to paperwork, training and clean-up equipment. For example, a HEPA vacuum can cost more than $1,000, and replacement filters run as high as $250, says Mr. Suskauer.

"We are concerned about children, but we just don't feel that it's been proven that remodeling is a big cause of lead poisoning," says Michael Heuser, vice-chair of government affairs for the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, based in Des Plaines, Ill. Both Mr. Heuser's group and the National Association of Home Builders have worked with their members on voluntary lead-safety practices.

The public has until April 10 to submit comments on the proposal. The agency will then consider the public's input and issue a final rule.

The first phase of the rule to go into effect would apply to owner-occupied housing built before 1960 where a child under age 6 resides, rental housing built before 1960, and homes built between 1960 and 1978 where a child has been found to have high blood lead. The second phase of the rule would go into effect a year later and would apply to owner-occupied homes built between 1960 and 1978 where children under the age of 6 live, as well as rental housing built during the period. The proposal would not apply to activities that disrupt less than two square feet of painted surface, the EPA says.

Some states, including California, Indiana and New Jersey, already regulate renovations in pre-1978 housing. States could administer their own versions of the rule with EPA approval.

Rebecca Morley, the executive director of the National Center for Healthy Housing, a child-advocacy group in Columbia, Md., called the proposed regulations a "critical piece" of eliminating childhood lead poisoning. She said they should expand to include a ban on practices that can create a lot of dust, such as sand-blasting or torching painted surfaces. She also said the rule should require contractors to provide an independent lead-clearance test that assesses at what levels, if any, lead is still present when the job is done, rather than the on-site "white glove" tests that the EPA is proposing. She and other advocates also note the proposed rule doesn't cover other buildings where children may spend time, like day-care centers.

People who are planning renovations can learn more about minimizing risk by calling 1-800-424-LEAD or going to www.epa.gov/lead.