EPA Lead Based Paint RRP Training Certification

Release date: 03/23/2011

Contact Information: David Deegan, (617) 918-1017

A Milford, Conn. company has agreed to pay $30,702 to settle claims by EPA that it failed to provide lead hazard information to home owners or occupants before doing renovations that may have disturbed surfaces coated with lead-based paint.

The settlement resolves claims made by EPA’s New England office that Permanent Siding and Windows, a contractor specializing in spray-on vinyl siding and replacing windows and doors, failed to provide EPA’s lead hazard information pamphlet to at least 17 owners or occupants before the company began renovation activities. This pamphlet is required by the federal Pre-Renovation Rule and helps educate home owners or occupants on how to minimize their exposure to hazardous lead dust that is often generated during sanding, cutting, demolition or other renovation activities. The pamphlet also provides resources for more information about lead. The violations in this case took place during renovation work done between January 2006 and March 2009.

Permanent Siding has certified that it is now in compliance with EPA’s Pre-Renovation rule and will submit a report to EPA later this year to demonstrate their continued compliance with this Rule.

“EPA requires companies to provide these pamphlets in order to protect families from health and safety hazards in the home,” said Curt Spalding, regional administrator of EPA’s New England office. “Property owners and occupants have a right to know about the dangers posed by renovations that involve lead.”

The federal lead law applies to all pre-1978 housing since, without testing, homes built before 1978 are presumed to contain lead-based paint. The settlement stems from a March 2009 EPA inspection and documentation Permanent Siding provided to the EPA.

More information: Lead Paint Assistance/Enforcement in New England (http://www.epa.gov/region1/enforcement/leadpaint/index.html)

Source: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/dfa3c2b788c125748525785c0065338b?OpenDocument

In Duval’s older rentals, EPA checks warnings on lead paint risks

Posted: January 12, 2011 – 7:45pm
By Steve Patterson

In Jacksonville’s older neighborhoods, an old worry – lead paint – is drawing attention from the federal government.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fined the operators of four Jacksonville apartment complexes and a house-management company last year after concluding they violated a law that says property owners must tell tenants about any evidence of lead paint.

The last case was finalized in December.

EPA doesn’t know whether tenants at any of those buildings were ever exposed to decaying paints. But it will send inspectors to as many as 175 rental offices around the Southeast each year to audit lease records for disclosure forms that are supposed to be signed by tenants at any property built before 1978.

Related: EPA crackdown on greenhouse gases starts in Florida power plants

“Understand that this is a public health issue,” said Anthony Toney, chief of the lead and children’s health section at EPA’s regional office in Atlanta.

Lead poisoning can hurt a child’s brain development and cause neurological problems that can persist as the child grows up. Adults are less vulnerable but can also be harmed by chronic overexposure at high levels.

There were 11 cases of lead poisoning diagnosed among children under age 6 in Duval County in 2009, the most recent numbers available from the Florida Department of Health. Statewide, there were 190.

Jacksonville is on an EPA checklist because its mix of older housing, many young children and records of childhood lead poisoning have raised flags.

Inspectors say simply telling renters about potential risks in older homes and apartments helps them make informed decisions that can lower childhood exposure.

“The improvement in the protection of human health is what we’re after here,” Toney said.

That isn’t always how it looks to landlords.

“They scare the hell out [of you],” said H. Winship Dowell, a property manager who spent five years talking with EPA about inspection results he said he was told could lead to nearly $100,000 in fines.

He settled in April by agreeing to pay $11,000 for a single violation at a home off St. Augustine Road, without admitting any wrongdoing.

“They put this big, heavy hand of the government on you,” he said. “And they have a big, heavy hand.”

Dowell said he has managed rental homes for 25 years and consistently gives tenants all the information about lead paint the law requires. He said he has never known of any tenant experiencing lead poisoning.

He said he willingly opened his files to an inspector in 2005. He said the inspector seized on minor inconsistencies in paperwork, such as a tenant initialing a form in the wrong spot.

Dowell said he was terrified when told a series of mistakes like that at nine properties could cost him $11,000 apiece, which he said could ruin him.

The maximum fine per infraction now is $37,500.

In some cases, though, fines are modest, and Toney said his office sometimes simply mails warnings for landlords to correct shortcomings.

In 23 cases where EPA collected fines around the Southeast last year, the fines totaled $129,000, said agency spokeswoman Dawn Harris Young.

The three other companies that were fined last year in Jacksonville – one was cited for two apartment complexes – were each fined less than $2,000.

One of those, the Madison Apartment Group, also paid for lead testing that confirmed there was no lead to be found, said Loretta Kelly, general counsel for the parent company to the chain that owns Madison at Savannah Oaks at 6017 Roosevelt Blvd. and Madison at Bay Pointe at 4500 Baymeadows Road. The company was among three that agreed to perform about $33,000 worth of work at their complexes in addition to paying cash, Harris Young said.

The other complexes that settled disclosure cases in Jacksonville last year were Park View Place at 6226 Barnes Road S. and Grand Pointe Apartments at 5800 University Blvd. W., according to EPA records.

steve.patterson@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4263

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-01-12/story/duval%E2%80%99s-older-rentals-epa-checks-warnings-lead-paint-risks#ixzz1KYdVL354