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Companies Settle EPA Lead-Paint Actions, Will Pay $89,000 Penalty

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

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The Environmental Protection Agency announced that two companies have agreed to pay a penalty of $89,300 to settle violations of federal lead-paint disclosure laws involving military housing at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, and the Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Conn.

The Lead Disclosure Rule, authorized by the Residential Lead Act, requires home sellers and landlords of housing built before 1978 to provide an EPA-approved Protect Your Family from Lead in Your Home pamphlet and warn of the hazards of lead-based paint to purchasers and tenants.

In a recent EPA enforcement complaint, the agency alleged that Northeast Housing LLC and Balfour Beatty Military Housing Management LLC failed on multiple occasions to notify prospective tenants, including families with young children, about potential lead-paint hazards in housing managed by the companies on the two Navy bases in New England.

Specifically, the EPA said the companies failed to comply with the Lead Based Paint Disclosure Rule when they entered into contracts to lease housing with military personnel during the years 2007-2010 by failing to provide available records and reports regarding lead-based paint and lead-based paint hazards to 13 lessees (10 lessees at Portsmouth and three lessees at the Conn. base).

Nine of the lessees were families with children, including seven families with children under the age of six, EPA said.

Northeast Housing and Balfour Beatty Military Housing Management cooperated with EPA in promptly correcting the violations and in reaching a quick settlement, the agency said.

The housing at both bases is owned by Northeast, a joint-venture limited liability company of the Department of the Navy and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Balfour Beatty Communities LLC; the Balfour Beatty affiliate is the managing partner.

Approximately 25 pre-1978 housing units are located at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where housing was built in the 1800s and early 1900s. Approximately 735 pre-1978 housing units are located at the Naval Submarine Base in Groton; they were built in the early 1960s.

The Lead Disclosure Rule requires that residential renters and purchasers of pre-1978 housing be provided with enough information about lead-based paint in general and known lead-based paint hazards in specific housing to make informed decisions about whether to lease or purchase the housing.

More information: lead hazards and lead disclosure rule and EPA lead information.

Comment from Catherine Brooks, Eco-Strip, (5/3/2012, 12:20 PM)

Individual landlords and lease management companies sometimes but public safety as a lower priority. With public awareness and EPA enforcement increasing, I hope this trend turns around. The more public press about these "hitting where it hurts" fines, the fewer families at risk. Armed Services compounds are often the only ones financially available to these families on the move. Let's support the families' health on the home front as we support our troops defending us overseas.