BELLOWS FALLS — The 2008 amendments to the 1996 Vermont lead law enforce time limits between identifying the problem and completing repair work on hazardous surface. The law also restricts access to identified surfaces and components, and areas directly below deteriorated surfaces, including physical barriers.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2010, new legal tools will be in place to make it easier to enforce the law. A $400 ticket may be issued by the Dept. of Health for failure to file Essential Maintainance Practices (EMP) compliance statements by the due date.
Landlords and owners of buildings with childcare facilities are required to file an EMP compliance statement every 365 days with the Department of Health and with property insurers. For buildings with childcare facilities, the document must also be filed with the Dept. for Children and Families.
Work practices
The Vermont Lead Law prohibits certain work practices and requires other work practices when disturbing more than 1 square foot of paint in housing built prior to 1978. Unless a house has been inspected and determined lead free by a lead risk assessor, paint is presumed to be lead-based.
Bellows Falls resident Matt Trieber, a geologist and Vermont state-licensed lead risk assessor and lead inspector - and also a landlord - said he sees in his work unsafe work practices and non-compliance. He added he also sees ignorance of lead laws and the dangers of lead poisonings “all the time.”
When landlords don't comply with laws governing such toxic materials, “you see the effects in rates of poisoned children,” Trieber said. “Once a child is poisoned, it is irreparable.”
“With more knowledge, the issue would be of more concern to [parents, landlords, and tenants],” he said.
“It goes a lot further than the landlord. What is done on one person's property can affect another person's property,” Trieber explained.
“If a landlord re-sides his house with lead paint underneath, or is ripping out windows or doors, this creates paint dust and chips that could fall or blow onto a neighbor's property where children may play. They are generating lead dust,” Trieber said.
“If there isn't polysheeting 10 feet out from the house and they aren't using wet methods, [their work] ends illegally,” he added.
The Vermont Dept. of Health (VDH) lists examples of unsafe and prohibited work practices, including dry scraping, machine sanding, or grinding, or open flame burning or torching.
Required safe work practices include:
• limiting access to interior and exterior work areas,
• enclosing interior work areas with plastic sheathing or other effective lead barriers,
• wearing protective clothing,
• misting paint surfaces before disturbing paint,
• wetting paint debris before sweeping to limits dust creation.
According to the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, which has participated in the lead reduction program since 1996, property owners of housing built before 1978 must:
• provide written information on lead paint hazards to current and prospective tenants,
• post a notice in the building asking occupants to report deteriorated paint to the owner or agent,
• Perform EMPs,
• Complete a VDH training course, or have a representative of the owner's maintenance staff complete the course,
• Sign an affidavit of EMP compliance indicating that EMPs have been completed, and file annually with insurer and the VDH.
Lead in soil and water
The VDH advises that soil around the exterior of buildings built prior to 1978 is likely to contain lead from paint flakes and other sources.
Soil near roadways may be contaminated from car exhaust from the days of leaded gasoline. Soil can be tracked into homes. Even newer homes built on an older lot may have lead contaminated soil.
The VDH recommends that to prevent lead poisoning, children should never play in bare soil.
Children can also be poisoned by lead that travels from workplaces on a parent's clothing from construction and renovation work, auto repair and work with batteries, plumbing, or places where people do welding or soldering.
Lead can be picked up from products such as toys or toy jewelry made in other countries, imported candies or make-up, or home remedies.
Metal pots with lead solder, such as samovars, or glazed pottery like bean pots might also contain lead and can be transferred to children. Stained glass making, bullets, and fishing sinkers might also poison children.