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Any lead paint dust is considered hazardous, according to new standards finalized Thursday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for identifying and cleaning up harmful dust in some homes and childcare facilities across the country.
Even low lead exposure is known to be dangerous. It can affect mental development in children and cause permanent health problems. In the US, lead has been phased out of paint over the decades, but it is still found in many older buildings: an estimated 31 million homes built before 1978, 3.8 million of which contain at least one child under 6 years of age.
Young children are especially vulnerable because they crawl on the ground and hang from windows that can be contaminated with lead-based paint dust, which results in exposure when they put their hands in their mouths.
“This paint is 50 years old at this point,” said Michal Friehoff, assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “In some cases, it's older than that, and I feel it's time to finally rid the country of the scourge of lead paint on our children's health.”
Lead-based paint is usually diagnosed when a child has high levels of lead in their blood. In these cases, the EPA He asks The hazard must be cleaned up and the area tested to ensure that lead paint dust levels do not exceed certain limits.
“Today, the Biden-Harris administration is establishing a new, essentially zero-tolerance standard for lead detection in homes or child care facilities,” said Ali Zadi, the White House's national climate adviser. “Any level of lead found in a home triggers the need for action and a certified lead abatement specialist must come and clean it up, and our labs will not be considered until they reach low lead levels that can be reliably detected.”
The new requirements strengthen the standards at which lead abatement is considered complete, which is a lead abatement of 5 per square foot for windows, 40 micrograms per square foot for windows and 100 micrograms per square foot for window sills, as measured by an EPA-accredited laboratory.
These revised limits are higher than proposed. Regulation It was announced last year. The difference between the planned and completed limits reduces the cost of compliance, Friedhoff said.
“One thing we heard very loudly in response to the proposed rule was that there were a very small number of laboratories that had the technology to measure the minimum standards that we proposed,” she said. “What that means is, if we had done it the way we proposed, Lojam could have done the job with a smaller number of labs. This means that eventually some lead paint reduction will be done. This meant that families were required to stay out of their homes longer due to reduced lab capacity, and ultimately, we felt we could reduce the risk to many children and families by switching to a lab. A standard implemented by New York City in 2021.
“I think it's really a false choice to say that children have to choose between having a safe home and not having a home,” Friedhoff said.
The new rule is expected to reduce lead exposure by up to 1.2 million people in the US each year. Zadie said homes with lead-based paint are found in communities of color and low-income areas.
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The lead dust laws are part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to reduce lead exposure across the country, officials said. This month, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Administration awards more than $420 million to eliminate lead hazards in housing and HUD-supported properties Rule completed It requires potable water systems to identify and replace lead pipes within 10 years. The EPA has announced $2.6 billion in funding to improve the nation's drinking water infrastructure.