EPA Proposes Stricter Regulations on Lead Exposure in Certain Buildings, Including Some Schools

Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a new draft rule for stricter standards on exposure to lead in buildings where children under the age of 6 spend significant time—including residential buildings, child care facilities, and schools.

The new rule lowers the dust lead hazard standards (DLHS) for floors, windowsills, and window troughs to any level greater than zero reported by an EPA-recognized laboratory — meaning any amount of lead found would be considered hazardous. Additionally, the rule lowers the dust-lead clearance levels (DLCL): the acceptable level of dust-lead that a building can have. Translation: once dust-lead hazards are detected, buildings must conduct activities to decrease levels down to DLCL. Those activities are known as abatement.

EPA’s proposed rule does not include any mandated testing or abatement. How this rule impacts your district depends on your state’s requirements for risk assessments, testing and abatement of dust lead. If your district is required to test under these standards, they apply to buildings built before 1978 and rooms where children under 6 spend significant time, including classrooms as well common areas like gyms, cafeterias, hallways, etc.

The final rule is expected to go into effect in the Fall of 2024. Read the full proposed rule here. An additional fact sheet is available here.

This move is part of a larger effort by the Biden-Harris administration to limit children’s exposure to lead—which is shown to damage a child’s brain and nervous system, causing slowed growth and development as well as learning, hearing and speech problems. In October 2022, EPA announced proposed updates to the Lead and Cooper Rule, known as the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI), which would add requirements to testing for lead in drinking water in schools. A proposed rule is expected soon with the final rule set to go into effect in October 2024.

On Monday, July 24, EPA also announced $58 million in grants will be provided for schools and child care facilities to test for and remove lead in drinking water. The Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing and Reduction Grant Program comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Money will be provided to states then to local entities.