EPA announces stricter lead paint policies impacting millions of American homes

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it had finalized a new set of requirements aimed at eliminating lead-based paint dust from older homes and childcare facilities.

The new ruling declares any amount of lead exposure as harmful, and limits the amount of lead-based paint dust in homes constructed before 1978 to levels low enough that they cannot be detected.

"Too often our children, the most vulnerable residents of already overburdened communities, are the most profoundly impacted by the toxic legacy of lead-based paint," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement on Thursday, adding that "These protections will reduce lead exposures for hundreds of thousands of people every year, helping kids grow up healthy and meet their full potential."

The EPA estimates that the new rule will limit exposure to lead for nearly 1.2 million people every year, including 178,000 to 326,000 children under the age of 6.

Banned for 46 years, but still a heath hazard

Lead-based paint was banned in 1978. The EPA estimates, however, that as many as 31 million housing units − single-family homes and multi-unit apartments -- still contain some level of lead paint, including 3.8 million homes with one or more children under the age of 6 living in them.

Exposure to lead, and lead dust created by deteriorating or disturbed lead-based paint, can cause serious and lifelong adverse health impacts, and young children are especially vulnerable to ingesting lead dust. Even small amounts of exposure can severely harm mental and physical development for young children and cause lifelong adverse health effects, including behavioral problems, lower IQ, slowed growth, and irreversible damage to the brain.

In adults, lead exposure can lead to increased blood pressure, heart disease, decreased kidney function, and may cause cancer.

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Lower income communities are also considered especially vulnerable to these risks, given that lead-based paint is more commonly found in lower-income neighborhoods.

Ruling mandates undetectable levels of lead paint

The current standards consider hazardous levels of lead-based paint dust to be 10 micrograms per square foot on floors, 100 micrograms per square foot for window sills, and 400 micrograms per square foot for window troughs.

The new rule, which goes into effect next year, reduces those levels across the board to an essentially undetectable level − the lowest amount that can be accurately measured in a laboratory setting − after lead paint abatement has occurred.

That abatement process could be triggered by determining that a child has an elevated level of lead in their blood, or through requirements for receiving federal housing funding.

“We can all breathe a little easier now that the EPA has significantly lowered its dust lead standard to protect children,” said Peggy Shepard, Co-Founder & Executive Director of the New York-based advocacy group WE ACT for Environmental Justice.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration also announced a ruling requiring water utilities to identify and remove all lead pipes from homes within the next decade.

Max Hauptman is a Trending Reporter for Paste BN. He can be reached at MHauptman@gannett.com