Lead Paint in Four Parts

Dealing with Lead based Paint

Many people are concerned about lead paint in their homes. People have been concerned about the health of their living environment for a long time, but it seems that this concern has increased as more scientific data about the effects of environment on human health have been realized. Many contractors care enough about their customers to educate them about the risks and the steps they will take to mitigate them, but other contractors either don’t know the risks and solutions, or don’t care. If you are thinking about a paint project on your home, inside or out, it makes sense to inform yourself about the issues involved.

Dealing with the lead paint that is in your home is a complex issue, more than can be discussed in one article, so I’m going to break this into four parts:

Part 1: The Risks and the Law(s)

Part 2: Encapsulation Versus Abatement

Part 3: Interior Encapsulation

Part 4: Exterior Encapsulation

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Part 1: The Risks and the Law(s)

Lead was Standard Practice for a Long Time

Lead was added to paints to provide a number of benefits, but chiefly to provide durability to the paint film. Using lead-based paint increased the average life expectancy of a paint job significantly. Painters who valued their reputation loved this durability, as did customers. In fact, even once lead based paint was being phased out of the industry, painters would buy white lead and add it to the paint at the jobsite.

However, the health effects from exposure to lead base paint chips and dust became too serious to ignore. Lead is a toxin that causes a lot of harm to anyone who is exposed, but even more so to specific portions of the population. In children under the age of five, a period when the brain is still developing, lead exposure dramatically increases the risk of mental handicap, learning disabilities, and behavioral problems. “Under five” includes in utero, meaning that pregnant women are a high risk population. Exposure can also lead to fertility problems and even sterility in teens and adults. People with breathing issues are also at increased risk when exposed to lead. No one is safe when exposed to lead and measures have been taken to protect all of us.

Today, paint contractors have three main responsibilities when it comes to dealing with lead paint: 1) they must protect the general public, 2) they must protect their workers, and 3) they must protect the environment. The laws that govern when and how these responsibilities must be met fall under the purview of different government agencies. There is overlap among these agency mandates, as well as conflicting requirements between them. The government has the right idea, but as with anything, the devil is in the details.

The initial measures started with legislation and regulations that removed the use of lead paint from residential use in 1978. This was more of an environmental concern at first, as the EPA was the governing agency involved with regulation of lead. Then the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) got involved with regulations to protect employees. As more and more evidence of the harmful effects of lead were released, the civil and criminal courts became involved as parents of effects children sought compensation from the paint manufacturers in a number of high profile cases in Rhode Island and Connecticut.

This says nothing of the state and local governments who then set up their own agencies and regulations, usually much more stringent that the federal requirements. (Where I run my painting business, I regularly deal with the California Department of Health Services, CalOSHA, and the Office of the San Francisco Building Inspector, each of whom have very stringent and enforced regulations).

Interestingly enough, there was no federal requirement that painting contractors take any specific training for dealing with the disturbance of lead based paint until just recently. Starting in April of 2010, any contractor who disturbs lead based paint as part of their normal operations must take a mandatory training session. While many states and municipalities have had these requirements in place for a long time, the federal government is just catching up.

The new EPA requirements will not mean much in states that have traditionally been highly regulated, such as California, but will do quite a bit to increase contractor awareness of the issues in states that have traditionally been more laissez faire, so long as the regulations are enforced. If you are contemplating a painting project and your home was built before 1978, be sure to ask each contractor you speak with to document their certification under this new EPA regulation.

So that’s the background of the regulatory environment. It doesn’t mean much without understanding how it is actually implemented on your project. To understand that, you’ll need a basic understanding of my next topic, Part 2 of this article, the difference between “encapsulation” and “abatement”.

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