LEAD PAINT IN RESIDENTIAL SOIL

By:  Attorney Charles Jerome Ware
        Charles Jerome Ware, LLC, A National Law Firm
        www.charlesjeromeware.com
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Lead (Pb) in residential comes from several different sources, including lead-based exterior paint
and automobile tailpipe emissions from vehicles burning leaded gasoline (now forbidden in the U.S.). Industrial emissions are also a source of residential lead-contaminated soil in some geographic areas.


The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found building age to be a very strong statistical predictor of soil lead, with soil around private homes built before 1940 having higher levels of lead in soil than homes constructed between 1960 and 1979  [ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), "Distribution of Soil Lead in the Nation's Housing Stock", 1996].


Though the consumer use of lead paint in residential buildings was Federally banned in the United States in 1978, many homes constructed prior to 1978 still contained some legacy (old) lead-based paint. Paint used in homes built between 1950 and 1978 contained between 0.5 and 50 percent lead, and the paint used prior to 1950 contained higher concentrations. One estimate is that more than three
million tons of lead-based paint remain in the 57 million homes built prior to 1980  [ Centers for Disease Control (CDC), " Preventing Lead Poisoning in Young Children", 1991 ].


Since a large portion of this lead-based paint covers building exteriors, it continues to be a significant source of lead in soil.


Lead-based paint can contaminate soil when the paint film weathers and reaches the soil in the form of chips and dust.  Lead abatement or removal, renovating, remodeling, and performing routine apart-
ment and house maintenance can also mobilize this lead if proper care is not taken. As the paint on a building's exterior deteriorates, lead paint chips and dust can concentrate in the surrounding soil. Also, dry-scraping, sanding, and blasting of lead-based paint can mobilize large amounts of lead in a short time and significantly increase lead concentrations in soil.  Lead concentrations in soil are typically highest in the "drip zone", or "drip line", which is the area surrounding and extending out about three feet from the perimeter of a building.