Alliance
Offers Lead-Safe Remodeling and Renovation
Train-the-Trainer Program
Do you want to make sure there is capacity in your community
to implement the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) lead-safe
renovation, repair, and painting (RRP) rule? Are you looking for an income stream
for your organization? Consider becoming an accredited
trainer to teach contractors how to use lead-safe work practices in accordance
with the new RRP rule!
In order to comply with the renovation, repair, and painting
rule, most contractors who disturb paint in pre-1978 buildings will need to
take an eight-hour class from an accredited trainer. More than 200,000 individuals
will need to be trained by April 2010, and there will be a huge demand for local
deliveries of the eight-hour class. The Alliance for Healthy Homes firmly believes
that in order to successfully implement the rule, we need local housing organizations,
tenants’ organizations, advocacy groups, health departments, and others
to step up and help meet the training demand. The RRP classes can be offered
for a fee, providing a new income stream or complementing existing training
efforts.
To help increase the number of trainers available, the
Alliance is developing a "train-the-trainer"
program for organizations interested in becoming accredited trainers
under the EPA rule. This program will cover: the requirements established by
the EPA to become an accredited trainer and how to meet them, how to market
the training and recruit participants, and a review of the model curriculum,
along with hints on how to best deliver it, with a special emphasis on hands-on
materials. The program draws upon the Alliance's experience in helping organizations
across the country develop lead-safe work practice training programs.
Upcoming training dates:
• January 21 and 22: Trenton, New Jersey (hosted by Isles, Inc.)
• February 16 and 17: Atlanta, Georgia (in partnership
with the NeighborWorks Training Institute- Register
Now!)
Additionally, those attending the NeighborWorks Training
Institute next month in Washington, DC as well as those in the area are invited
to attend a free hour and a half workshop on the RRP rule and an overview of
the training accreditation requirements from 4:30 to 6PM on Tuesday, December
9th.
The Alliance hopes to schedule additional trainings
over the next several months. If you are interested in training in your area,
would like to register for the scheduled classes, or have any other questions,
contact Patrick MacRoy, the Alliance’s Executive Director, at pmacroy@afhh.org.
Research Lays Out
Harms from “Bug Bombs”; NY State Moves to Restrict Use
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently
published the results of a study on “bug bombs,” also known as foggers,
which are popular pest management tools in apartments
and single-family homes.
The agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
for Oct. 17 noted that, while bug bombs are a common method of attempting to
deal with pests, they often cause injuries. With reports from eight states,
researchers found 466 injuries associated with the foggers between 2001 and
2006. Eighty-five percent of the reports occurred with residential usage, and
many exposures (48 percent) were blamed on residents being unable to leave the
area quickly enough, not leaving the area at all, or re-entering too soon. Eleven
percent were associated with unintentional discharge of the bug bombs, and 10
percent with "failure to notify others" such as neighbors. Respiratory
and gastrointestinal symptoms were most frequently noted as a result of exposure
to the bug bombs.
The MMWR report notes, "Greater efforts are needed
to promote safer alternatives to [bug bombs]. Integrated pest management (IPM)
control strategies need to be promoted and adopted." In fact, bug bombs
and other forms of fogging and widespread spraying are among the least effective
pest control methods available to deal with cockroaches and other insects. While
the devices will kill insects that are too slow or sick to flee, most strong,
healthy individuals will scatter and hide beyond the reach of the pesticide
fog or spray. When the pesticide disperses, these insects return. Repeated use
of many pesticides also works to build up resistance in many insect pests, especially
those that breed many times a year and evolve rapidly.
In light of the MMWR report, the State of New York announced
Oct. 17 that it was restricting the sale and use of bug bombs. The state’s
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will move to classify foggers
as a restricted-use product, meaning that only certified pesticide applicators
— rather than the general public — will be able to obtain them.
Simultaneously, DEC will explore the need to further limit fogger use and encourage
the adoption of better pest management strategies.
Instead of bug bombs and blanket spraying, property owners
and residents should instead practice IPM. This involves a variety of measures,
from physically sealing and blocking pest entryways, eliminating food waste
and clutter, repairing water leaks and other sources of moisture used by pest
species, and the targeted use of lower-toxicity pesticides.
EPA Finalizes
Ambient Air Standards for Lead; Evidence Emerges of OMB Meddling
Editor’s note: This article is based on a piece
that originally appeared in the Oct. 21 edition of The OMB Watcher,
the biweekly online newsletter of nonprofit government
watchdog group OMB Watch. The full text of the original OMB Watch article is
available at www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/4390.
On Oct. 16, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
tightened the national public health standard for airborne lead, drawing rare
praise from clean air advocates. However, shortcomings in the network for monitoring
lead pollution persist, and a new requirement to increase the number of pollution
detectors was watered down by the White House Office of Management and Budget
(OMB).
EPA’s new ambient air standard for lead brought the
exposure level down to 0.15 µg/m3 (micrograms per cubic meter), from 1.5
µg/m3. The adjustment marked the first time EPA had revised the standard
since it was first set in 1978. The review and adjustment of the standards under
the National Ambient Air Quality Standards program were prompted by a lawsuit
filed by clean air advocates and other environmentalists over dangerous pollution
from a lead smelter in Missouri.
Advocates who have often found fault with President Bush's
clean air regulations complemented the decision to finalize a stricter rule
on lead. The Natural Resources Defense Council called it a "big step toward
protecting children." Critics of the Bush administration's record on science-based
policy were also pleased. In setting the standard, EPA Administrator Stephen
Johnson took the advice of his scientific advisors, who had recommended a standard
below 0.20 µg/m3.
Despite the praise for resisting industry pressure and
setting a strong new standard, some dispute EPA's method for calculating the
level of lead in the air. EPA will continue to average air concentrations over
a calendar quarter. EPA’s scientific advisors had recommended the agency
average concentrations every month. A one-month averaging time would better
account for big spikes in emissions. Conversely, under the three-month method,
two months of low emissions could attenuate emissions spikes in the third month.
To address concerns that EPA's system for monitoring airborne lead pollution
is inadequate, the agency announced an expansion of its monitoring network.
However, officials at OMB watered down a new requirement, which could allow
more than 100 polluting facilities to go unmonitored.
Critics say the Bush administration has allowed the national
system for detecting airborne lead to founder. Currently, state and local authorities
operate 133 monitors nationwide, according to an EPA spokesperson. In 1980,
800 monitors were in operation. EPA used its revision to the air quality standard
for lead to set criteria for the placement or relocation of new monitors. EPA
estimates the new criteria will require an additional 236 monitors.
One criterion that triggers the placement of monitors is
the amount of lead pollution emitted by industrial facilities. The new regulation
requires state and local officials to set up monitors near sources emitting
one ton or more of lead pollution per year. In a public proposal EPA unveiled
in May, the agency signaled its intent to set the threshold between 200 kg and
600 kg (about 0.22 tons and 0.66 tons). An OMB Watch investigation of EPA's
rulemaking docket discovered documents that indicate officials from OMB pushed
for the weaker threshold requirement.
The change from a 0.5-ton threshold to a one-ton threshold
could have real consequences. EPA estimates the one-ton threshold will apply
to 135 facilities. However, the 0.5-ton threshold would have applied to at least
259 facilities. The change means state and local officials will not be required
to place new lead pollution monitors near at least 124 facilities that emit
lead.
Cornell,
New York State Release New Guidelines for Preventing Bed Bugs
in Group Living Facilities
Cornell University and the New York State Integrated Pest
Management Program have released new
guidance on preventing bed bugs in group living facilities. The
new guidelines are timely, as bed bugs have made a resurgence in a variety of
housing, both temporary (hotels, shelters) and more
permanent (college residence halls, some apartment buildings).
The guidelines cover bed bug prevention, management and
control, education and awareness, and are specifically geared toward public
agencies and private or public housing administrators and their facilities management
teams. It is applicable to other types of living situations, though techniques
and recommendations may need to be adapted for different types of housing. Fact
sheets listed at the end of the publication are intended to be used as stand-alone
educational document for residents, housekeepers, medical and social service
providers, and others.
NCHH
Updates Comparison of Green Building Guidelines for Healthfulness
The National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) has published
an update of its 2006 report, Comparing Green Building Guidelines and Healthy
Homes Principles: A Preliminary Investigation, that compared major national
green building and indoor air quality guidelines with reference to criteria
related to keeping homes dry, clean, ventilated, safe, contaminant-free, pest-free,
and well-maintained. The report also examined building products and systems
for testing ventilation and radon exposure. The analysis examined building guidelines
produced by both the public and private sectors, including: Enterprise Community
Partner's Green Communities Criteria, National Association of Home Builder's
Green Home Building Guidelines, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy
Star with Indoor Air Package, and the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED for
Homes.
Enterprise Community Partners' program ranked highest overall,
largely because it includes many mandatory indoor criteria, the report says.
The National Association of Home Builders ranked the lowest, because it has
a minimal set of mandatory standards. The report concludes that while all the
programs have components aimed at improving resident health, critical elements
are missing. For example, injury prevention is omitted from all of the guidelines
and protection from contaminants such as lead, radon, and pesticides are not
uniformly covered. Only Enterprise’s Green Communities focuses on affordable
existing housing, an important consideration since low-income families are disproportionately
impacted by housing-related health problems. The analysis does suggest that
green building programs offer a significant opportunity to achieve public health
benefits and have the potential to transform the housing market toward healthier
building. The report recommends ways to strengthen occupant health criteria
for green building programs to deliver even greater benefits to residents.
New York Governor
Vetoes Lead Poisoning Prevention Bill, Cites Poor Economy
Gov. David Paterson (D) recently
vetoed a New York State bill to provide tax credits to landowners to rid their
properties of lead hazards and reduce the risk of young children becoming lead
poisoned. Lead poisoning prevention advocates who supported and fought hard
for the bill decried the move.
The legislation was originally introduced by two state
legislators from the Rochester area, Sen. Joseph Robach (D) and Assemblyman
David Gantt (D). It would have shifted the state's focus away from identifying
and reacting to lead poisonings and toward preventing them. Similar versions
of the bill have been proposed for years but have never made it to the governor's
desk. Advocates said that the bill’s passage marked real progress and
were excited about implementation of what was to be a groundbreaking new law.
This bill would have required the state to develop lead
poisoning prevention plans for 30 lead "hot spots," including parts
of Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo. Under the legislation, homeowners
and landlords who participated in the new prevention program would have received
tax credits to cover half the costs of removing and repairing lead hazards in
their properties. Credits would have maxed out at $1,500 per property and $5,000
per taxpayer. The bill also would have improved lead poisoning screenings for
one- and two-year-olds, as well as pregnant women and all children under the
age of six who are considered at risk.
The governor stated that it was the most difficult legislation
that he has vetoed thus far and cited the state’s budget problems, which
are the result of the ongoing economic decline throughout the country. Paterson
also asserted that other similar laws on the books already address problems
that portions of the bill sought to solve. He pledged to use existing laws to
better address lead poisoning and include new funding in his next executive
budget, due Dec. 18.
The Alliance for Healthy Homes, a strong supporter of the
New York bill that supported the efforts of local and state advocates, expressed
its strong disappointment with Paterson’s decision. “New York State
is number one in confirmed cases of lead poisoning, yet it currently has some
of the least protective policies in the country,” said Patrick MacRoy,
Executive Director of the Alliance. “The costs of this bill are dwarfed
by the long-term benefits, both in terms of reduced health care costs and preventing
learning disabilities and intelligence loss among New York children. This veto
represents the triumph of politics over sensible policy.”
HUD Announces
Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Housing Grants
On October 15, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development awarded more than $131 million in grants to 61 local projects to
conduct a wide range of activities, from eliminating lead hazards in homes to
increasing public awareness about childhood lead poisoning,
from addressing pest problems to examining wide-ranging healthy homes issues.
Through its seven grant programs (Lead Hazard Control,
Lead Hazard Reduction Demonstration Grants, Lead Outreach Grants, Lead Technical
Studies, Operation Lead Elimination Action Program (LEAP), Healthy Homes Demonstration
Grants, and Healthy Homes Technical Studies Grants), HUD's Office of Healthy
Homes and Lead Hazard Control promotes local efforts to eliminate dangerous
lead and other hazards from lower income homes; stimulates private sector investment
in lead hazard control; educates the public about the dangers of lead-based
paint; and supports scientific research into innovative methods to identify
and eliminate health hazards in housing.
New
GAO Report Urges Improved Federal Agency Coordination
on Mold Research and Education
A report published Sept. 30 by the U.S. Government Accountability
Office (GAO) concluded that “[w]hile the current research activities on
indoor mold conducted or sponsored by EPA, HHS, and HUD address identified health-related
research gaps to varying degrees, these activities are largely uncoordinated
within and across agencies, and many are generated by independent researchers
rather than by agency solicitations for specific research.” The report
goes on to say that poor coordination contributes to the lack of standardized,
quantitative methods for measuring exposure to mold, impeding knowledge about
health effects and causing unnecessary duplication
of research.
The report also noted that the Institute of Medicine failed
to associate a number of adverse health effects with mold exposure because the
available studies were of “insufficient quality, consistency, or statistical
power to permit a conclusion regarding the presence of an association.”
The GAO report found that federal guidance documents about mold provide generally
useful information, but some documents fail to “advise the general public
about some potentially serious health effects, and others provide inconsistent
information about cleaning agents and appropriate protective gear.”
The report specifically criticizes the Federal Interagency
Committee on Indoor Air Quality for largely failing to adequately coordinate
federal indoor air quality research and foster information sharing among federal
agencies and the public, and recommends that EPA use the Committee to help articulate
and guide research priorities on indoor mold, coordinate information sharing
among agencies, and provide information to the public about ongoing research.
The report also recommends that the Committee help federal agencies review their
existing guidance to the public on indoor mold to ensure that it sufficiently
alerts the public, especially vulnerable populations, about potential adverse
health effects and educates them on how to minimize exposure in homes.
New Report Issued
on Maryland's Children and the Environment
On Oct. 23, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene released a new report entitled Maryland's Children and the Environment.
According to the agency, the report "is Maryland's first effort to synthesize
data to provide a coherent picture of Maryland's children
and the environment. The emphasis of the report is to provide the public, policy
makers, researchers, and public health officials with measures that can be used
to gauge Maryland's progress to improve the environment and reduce the rates
of environmentally-related health conditions in children."
The report, which includes sections on lead exposure, pesticides,
respiratory diseases, and indoor pollutants, was funded by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA).
In the Oct. 15 round of HUD’s lead hazard
control and healthy homes grants, the Alliance was awarded a Healthy Homes Technical
Studies grant for a project to study the efficacy and cost effectiveness of
integrated pest management (IPM) practices compared to traditional pesticide
applications in private, low-income, multifamily rental housing in Greensboro,
NC. The owners and residents in 300 units will receive
education, assistance, and incentives to adopt IPM. The effectiveness of the
IPM practices will be measured through cockroach trap counts and resident questionnaires
in all units, as well as measurements of cockroach allergen and pesticide levels
in dust samples from a subset of the housing units. The Alliance is partnering
with the Greensboro Housing Coalition on this project.
* * * * *
Please join the Alliance staff in giving a warm thank you
to Brian Gumm. Since 2004, Brian has been the Alliance’s Webmaster and
Editor of the Alert. Unfortunately for the Alliance, this issue will be his
last as he will be leaving us to devote more time to his full-time communications
job. We wish Brian much success in all his future endeavors!
* * * * *
If you appreciate the news and information in the Alliance
Alert, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Alliance! We
rely on donations from individuals and organizations to allow us to do policy
work in Washington and across the country. You can make a one-time donation
or sign up to make a recurring monthly or quarterly donation on our website.
Thank you for your support!
* * * * *
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Upcoming Events
The Housing
Justice Network will hold its National Meeting on Dec. 7-8 in Washington,
DC. The National Meeting is a dynamic, two-day event
that brings together low-income housing allies — public interest attorneys,
affordable housing advocates, policy analysts, organizers, and residents —
from across the nation. Attendees participate in sessions on current developments
in federal housing programs, discuss strategies for representing the interests
of low-income residents, and exchange ideas on litigating, advocating, and organizing.
HJN members will also begin the process of planning policy advocacy and setting
priorities for work with the new incoming administration. For more information,
see www.nhlp.org/hjn2008/informationregistrationforms.pdf.
The Alliance for Healthy Homes will host a FREE hour and
half workshop entitled, “Gearing up to Implement the EPA Repair, Renovation,
& Painting Rule: How to Build Capacity in Your Community” as part
of the NeighborWorks Training Institute on December 9th, 4:30 to 6PM in Washington,
DC. The workshop will highlight how community development corporations and others
can become accredited trainers and help expand neighborhood capacity to implement
the RRP rule. For more information, contact Patrick MacRoy at pmacroy@afhh.org.
The Alliance will also be offering a two-day “Train-the-trainer”
class on how to successfully teach the RRP class and become accredited under
the RRP rule. Visit the Alliance's website for dates
and locations for these classes. For more information, contact
Patrick MacRoy at pmacroy@afhh.org.
A national conference on “Approaches to Managing
Mold in Buildings” will be held April 27-29, 2009, in Orlando, FL. Sponsored
by the University of Tulsa, the conference will cover the “latest research
and applied outcomes to use in field practice from key national and international
experts.” For more information, visit www.utulsa.edu/iaqprogram
or call 918-631-3088.
The 2009 National Lead Poisoning Prevention and Healthy
Homes Conference will occur April 28-May 1, 2009, in Orlando, FL. The conference
will provide a wealth of information and a series of panel discussions from
healthy homes professionals and advocates. For more information, see www.LeadMoldConferences.com.
Save the date for the symposium entitled “Promoting
Environmental and Policy Change to Support Healthy Aging,” to be held
Sept. 15-16, 2009, in Chapel Hill, NC. This symposium is a third in a series
funded by CDC's Healthy Aging Program. More information on this symposium can
be found at www.prc-han.org.
