I don't think I'd mind paying 25% more for renovations if it prevents lead poisoning.

I received this from a realtor friend of mine today:


EPA May Soon Regulate Home Renovations

( February 2, 2006) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is on the brink of instituting the first regulations governing home remodels in an attempt to minimize lead poisoning in children.

The rules would govern owner-occupied and rental dwellings built prior to 1978, when lead paint was outlawed. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 65 percent of homes nationwide were erected prior to the ban.

Contractors — at least one of which per project would need EPA certification in lead-safe work practices — would be required to seal off the work area and purchase special vacuums and respirators.

Mike Nagel, president of Roselle, Ill.-based Remodel One, says most contractors do nothing to reduce lead-paint dust due to the absence of stringent regulations.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, home renovations could cost 25 percent more as a result of the new rule, as builders would have to pay for training, new equipment, and additional liability insurance. Other industry representatives are concerned that the rule is too broad and unnecessary.

The first phase of implementation would involve pre-1960 rentals, pre-1960 owner-occupied homes with residents under age 6, and dwellings built from 1960 to 1978 that house a child with high blood lead levels, with all rentals and owner-occupied homes with young children built between 1960 and 1978 covered by the second phase.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Sara Schaefer (02/02/06)

__________________

Current:
2014 VW Tiguan SEL 4Motion 43,000 miles.

2016 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport (wife's).

Past:
2006 Jetta TDI 135,970 miles. Sold Nov. '13.
1995 E-320 Special Edition. 220,200 miles. Sold Sept. '07.
1987 190-E 16 valve. 153,000 miles. Sold Feb. '06.
1980 300-D 225,000 miles. Donated to the National Kidney Foundation.
1980 240-D manual, 297,500 miles. Totaled by inattentive driver.

When we were renovating and our daughter was young, we'd get lead tests done during her checkups. Never a problem.
There is some dispute as to whether the main source of lead in children's blood is the paint and dust in the home or the dirt outside.
Is there any evidence at all that children have suffered lead poisoning from home renovations? Or anyone has for that matter?

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

My lead level went way down after I quit biting down on those lead fishing sinkers....

I'm not sure that this new EPA thing is really necessary, or is it because they have to show that they are DOING something?.

just my $.02,
Wes

Great another way for the gov to screw us. Pressure treated wood is next, that stuff will be treated like toxic waste in a few years.

Lead paint will only hurt you if you eat it, people over react a lot sometimes.

__________________
1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

So who does the EPA have to answer to? Just like kim teal and her damn anti car painting plan... AHH

Its lead paint, you eat it, you get sick... Dont eat it, and wear a filter when sanding it...

I hate the EPA, PITA, and ACLU
~Nate

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95 Honda Shadow ACE 1100.
1999 Plymouth Neon Expresso. 2.4 swap, 10.5 to 1 comp, big cams. Autocross time attack vehicle!
2012 Escape, 'hunter" (5 sp 4cyl)

Really? What's your position on disingenuous presidents who twist scientific studies to suit their warped political agendas?

Sorry to hijack the thread, but this is arguably relevant, and it gives me another chance to express scorn for W. Read this from www.washingtonmonthly.com:

BUSH IGNORES SCIENTISTS....FILM AT 11....I know this will come as a shock, but a group of scientists claimed yesterday that the Bush administration is ignoring their recommendations and twisting their research results:

In an unprecedented action, the Environmental Protection Agency's own scientific panel on Friday challenged the agency's proposed public health standards governing soot and dust.

....Some panel members called the administrator's actions "egregious" and said his proposals "twisted" or "misrepresented" their recommendations.

....Cal/EPA's air pollution epidemiology chief, Bart Ostro, charged during the teleconference that the EPA had incorporated "last-minute opinions and edits" by the White House Office of Management and Budget that "circumvented the entire peer review process."

He said research that he and others had conducted also had been misrepresented in the EPA's lengthy justification for the proposed new standards.

In an interview later, Ostro said he was referring to marked-up drafts of Johnson's proposals that showed changes by the White House budget office and language that was "very close to some of the letters written by some of the trade associations."

Sigh. I hardly even know what to say about stuff like this anymore. Of course the language was
"very close" to letters written by trade associations. The modern Republican Party doesn't do policy anymore, they just farm it out to K Street.

Maybe Chris Mooney will follow up on this later. It's his beat, after all.

At least you point out your own agenda.

Does anyone have an answer to Kerry's truely relevent question?

__________________

Current:
2014 VW Tiguan SEL 4Motion 43,000 miles.

2016 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport (wife's).

Past:
2006 Jetta TDI 135,970 miles. Sold Nov. '13.
1995 E-320 Special Edition. 220,200 miles. Sold Sept. '07.
1987 190-E 16 valve. 153,000 miles. Sold Feb. '06.
1980 300-D 225,000 miles. Donated to the National Kidney Foundation.
1980 240-D manual, 297,500 miles. Totaled by inattentive driver.

I really don't see why they have to overreact like this. If you think about it lead is probably one of the less toxic things we deal with. Heck a Big Mac probably has more dangerious chemicals.

If you are building a deck buy the good pressure treated stuff now, it is next.

__________________
1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Completely absurd.

It would increase the cost of renovation work by significantly more than 25%. It's also a slippery slope, as someone already pointed out... What's next, pressure treated wood? Requiring hazardous materials disposal procedures for the scrapings of old lead-based paint, or plaster fragments that were painted with it?...

The potential for ridiculousness, and expensiveness, is VERY high with such legislation.

It would also make it even more difficult for "do-it-yourselfers" and independent contractors.... Local zoning laws and inspectors in many locales ALREADY make things very tough for DIY guys and small-time independent contractors.

More ridiculous knee-jerk legislation like this is the LAST thing we need right now.

Mike

__________________
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1979 300 SD
350,000 miles
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1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
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1985 300TD
270,000 miles
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1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
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The legislative levels for lead come from several different sources. EPA, OSHA, HUD and so on. Those that concern children have mainly come from studies in urban low income areas in which children had eaten the dirt contaminated with lead. As of a few years ago (last time I did sampling for lead) there wasn't a firm guideline for inhalation exposure for workers - there are suggestive guidelines that you don't want to be over. As for surface contamination the most widely used guidelines are those set by HUD for a specified concentration per surface area - of course the intent here is to protect children, not adults who supposedly know what they're doing.
Incidentally, when you drive down the highway and see bridgework being done, many times the underside and sides of the bridge will be enclosed in plastic. You might think this is for worker protection but it's not. It was EPA mandated to protect the surrounding environment. Air concentrations of lead within that encapsulation were astronomical - too bad for the guys who have to work in there.
Essentially, if you don't work in a trade such as battery smelting or sandblasting painted surfaces which are fairly old then common sense should help. Don't eat lead contaminated dirt and wear a respirator if you're around heavily contaminated areas in which dust/fume may be present. And be sure to clean yourself up (change clothes, wash skin, etc...) when you leave the area to avoid taking the contaminant home.
Of course there's always room for the EPA to make some other arbitrary decision to decrease exposure levels of a substance without any scientific backing. They've already done this with DDT (currently over 3 billion additional deaths from malaria worldwide) and are well on the way with arsenic. Not to mention the absurdity of the proposed CalEPA guidelines in which a bakery can be fined for baking bread without a scrubber on the oven exhaust to get rid of that nasty "baked bread" smell.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

EPA is in a terrible mess and has been since its creation. From the limited gov folks (like me), it's yet another nanny-gov imposition. From the gov-is-solution side they think the EPA isn't litigious enough. So what you end-up with is an agency that is pushed and pulled and buffeted by the political whims and winds of whichever party is in power and whatever SIG squeals loudest.

Thanks to leaded gasoline, lead is now everywhere. Lots of countries (like MX) still produce leaded gas and you can bet fumes don't all drop in MX. I think that burning some types of coal also releases aerosol lead. No wonder baby-boomers are such dopes.

B

My brother in law is a private contractor in the home improvement business. He's extrememly talented and does high end quality work.

But he's getting run out of business. Why? Too many migrant workers in the area are willing to work for cheap, so he can't get any work unless he seriously underbids and makes little to no profit. On top of that, too many homeowners simply don't want quality (translate more expensive) work done on their homes because in the DC market, they don't plan to stay in their present homes for more than a few years. They'd rather have cheap work done of questionable quality since they won't be around when everthing falls apart.

So he and his wife are moving to Arizona where he'll build their house and then become a high school teacher. Not a bad profession, though.

__________________

Current:
2014 VW Tiguan SEL 4Motion 43,000 miles.

2016 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport (wife's).

Past:
2006 Jetta TDI 135,970 miles. Sold Nov. '13.
1995 E-320 Special Edition. 220,200 miles. Sold Sept. '07.
1987 190-E 16 valve. 153,000 miles. Sold Feb. '06.
1980 300-D 225,000 miles. Donated to the National Kidney Foundation.
1980 240-D manual, 297,500 miles. Totaled by inattentive driver.

Funny you should mention this. I did some sampling for lead near highways, didn't really find anything to speak of except for asbestos (from older style brake shoes and pads). Fortunatly lead is one of the more heavy elements and tends to not float about. Seems that the change to unleaded has lowered the lead found near roads.

As for the boomers; I wish they's retire early, destroy SS so that it may finally be "fixed" and let folks who were'nt part of the hippy generation get on with running things.

__________________
-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

Warning, aluminum foil zone! Conjecture follows.

I don't know what the combustion products of tetra-ethyl lead are, but I imagine that it's Co2, water, and lead oxide. How long does lead oxide stay aloft? I dunno. Probably not too long and probably gets quickly washed from the atmosphere with rain. Lead oxide, IRRC has a pretty high dissociation constant so it probably doesn't go readily into a neutral aqueous sol'n. Probably goes into sol'n more readily with a lower pH, like from acid rain. So I'll bet that [Pb] is greater in and around roadways southwestern cities than around southern or northeastern cities. Lower rainfalls in the desert southwest result in higher accumulation of metal ores in the soil than in the areas of higher rainfall. But who licks dust off roadways? Well, maybe dust in the wind would be a source?

Lead in surface water out east is more measurable. I recall that it is present in the mud in every body of water in the east.

Drink up!

B

Nowhere near Roman Empire water lead levels. Seems that the Plumbum is going back to whence it came via runoff...

__________________
-livin' in the terminally flippant zone