Lead in Paint: Contractor Machine-Sands Lead-Based Paint without Protection
EPA’s lead-safe work practices should be the norm. Unfortunately, they are not.
Category: Housing
Lead Funding: Summer 2024 Crucial for HUD’s Lead Hazard Reduction Grants
By August, the House and Senate appropriations committees are expected to consider HUD’s funding needs and pass funding bills for FY25. Congress should adopt an appropriations bill that addresses the statutory and administrative barriers that have hamstrung the program.
New England Lead Conference: Invigorating Discussions Among Diverse Stakeholders
What Happened? Unleaded Kids’ Tom Neltner joined about 200 people attending the in-person New England Regional Lead and Healthy Housing Conference on May 2–3, 2024, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It […]
Lead in Water: Indiana Allows Utilities to Replace LSLs without Landlord’s OK
Indiana’s legislature unanimously passed SEA-5 in March 2024, establishing steps by which drinking water utilities can replace customer-owned portions of lead service lines (LSL) without the owner’s consent. The provisions are designed to overcome what has become a major challenge facing utilities as they strive to eliminate LSLs in their service area in a cost-effective manner—cooperation of customers.
CDC sends mixed messages about sharing of key lead data
Successfully reducing children’s exposure to lead requires collaboration between all stakeholders: private and public; health, environmental, and housing; and federal, state, and local. Collaboration is particularly important when it comes to sharing data that helps identify homes that have already exposed children to lead so that the causes and underlying issues can be addressed.
Lead in Paint: Tenants Prompt EPA to Use RCRA to Clean Up Lead Dust in CT
EPA ordered a property owner of an apartment complex in a renovated old factory in Connecticut to assess and clean up lead-based paint hazards after the agency determined the hazards “may present an imminent and substantial endangerment” to tenants. The agency acted pursuant to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) as a backstop when the local health department lacked authority to address units where no young children lived.
Mapping Lead: Four States (OH, NJ, IN, and CA) Leading the Way
State maps of lead hazards help people visually understand the risks for their state or their community. When they are interactive, they serve as useful means to access detailed information about those risks.
Lead in Paint: HUD Asks Congress to Allow Grants to be Awarded by Formula
This is the first time HUD has proposed a formula approach, saying it will “allow more efficient distribution of funding to the highest need communities, streamline the selection and award of grants for communities facing large lead paint problems.” The balance will be competitive and “open to a broader range of States, Native American Tribes, and communities with pre-1978 rental housing.”
Congress cuts HUD’s lead hazard reduction grants by 31%
Congress cut HUD’s FY24 appropriations for its Lead Hazard Reduction Grant Program by 31%, from $290 to $200 million for FY24…Making matters worse, Congress also took back $65 million appropriated in FY22 for this program that HUD had until September 30, 2024, to obligate by issuing grants to communities to clean up lead-based paint hazards.
Lead in Soil: EPA Takes Important First Step to Tighten Limits
The guidance, when fully implemented, should have a significant impact on cleanups where there are industrial and commercial sources of lead contamination, past or present.