Remodelers to Face 'White-Glove' Test on Lead

Advocacy groups were up in arms when they discovered that the agency was contemplating a voluntary alliance with industry in 2004 to address the problem.

An internal EPA presentation at the time said that was the "most cost-effective" approach.

Proponents of the mandatory rule said it was still flawed.

"Some of the shortcomings are so significant as to completely undermine it," said Rebecca Morley, executive director of the National Center for Healthy Housing in Columbia. The nonprofit group gets grant money from the EPA and other federal agencies to research children's health issues.

Public interest groups complained that the rule gave homeowners false assurances that lead has been removed, did not require training for all workers and exempted some small jobs.

They also criticized the cleaning procedure the EPA prescribed to prove compliance -- what the rule calls achieving "white-glove" status. It involved a three-step process: two wet wipes of a cleaning cloth followed by one dry wipe if needed.

The EPA opted for this cheaper, faster way, instead of requiring contractors to take a sample from a finished surface and send it to a lab for evaluation -- a more costly step used in some other rules.

The agency said it abandoned a more aggressive cleaning protocol contained in its initial proposal in 2006 that required indefinite wiping until the white-glove level was reached.

"EPA is concerned about the possibility of requiring potentially indefinite cleaning by renovation contractors," making them responsible for preexisting dirt or grime, the agency said in the rule.

So it did studies on dust and the use of disposable cleaning cloths to come up with the three-wipe solution.

"All of the leaded dust generated by the renovation will have been cleaned up by two wet wipes followed by one dry wipe, where necessary," it said.

The certified renovator then will match the wipe to a "reference" card to check the level of cleanliness. If not clean enough after the first or second try, the third time is supposed to be the charm.

"The cleaning-verification process is borderline laughable," said Patrick MacRoy, executive director of Alliance for Healthy Homes, a nonprofit group working to prevent hazards in the home. "It's run a wet cloth over the area and eyeball it to see if it's as white as a standard reference card."

EPA's Gulliford said the agency looked for "an affordable test that performed" and is requiring "significant training for these contractors to do the test well."

Cindy Skrzycki is a regulatory columnist with Bloomberg News. She can be reached atcskrzycki@bloomberg.net.