2002_Annual_Lead_Compliance

Residential Lead Abatement (1999)

In March 1999, the Legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee voted to conduct a study of Residential Lead Abatement. The study examined Connecticut's law, regulations, and programs for screening children for elevated blood lead levels, as well as programs that provide financial assistance to property owners to abate hazardous lead from their properties. Under Connecticut law, property owners are liable for abatement of toxic levels of lead-based paint if a child under age six resides in the home.

The committee found the major emphasis of Connecticut's lead program is on identifying children who have high blood lead levels, requiring local health departments inspect the child's residence and, if lead hazards are found, ordering the property owner to abate the lead. This policy has not been particularly successful in Connecticut, especially when the high number of lead abatement orders issued to property owners are compared to the low number of actual abatements occurring. The study found the state spent about $11.5 million dollars and only 722 units had completed lead abatement, with the average cost of abating lead in a unit greater than $15,000

The committee concluded the cornerstone of the state's policy should be the prevention of lead poisoning and recommended a number of strategies for increasing prevention activities so fewer children will be exposed to lead hazards - including targeted lead screening, and voluntary maintenance practices by property owners supported by tax credits. Based on its findings, the committee proposed three administrative and nine legislative recommendations, which were raised in HB 5286. The bill, however, was not enacted.

The key administrative recommendations called for DPH to develop a comprehensive website for the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program and publish lead screening statistics on it and establish a single comprehensive database for the program. The table summarizes the compliance status for each administrative recommendation.


Summary of Compliance with Committee Recommendations
Administrative Recommendations
*Recommendation*	*Status*	*Agency Response*
Require DPH establish an internet website providing online access to its Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program	Full	DPH has dedicated a section of the DPH website to childhood lead poisoning prevention. Health education information, abatement laws and regulations and programs regarding financial assistance to property owners are available online. Screening and incidence rates have not yet been made available on the website, but the department intends to publish this data by March 2003.
Require DPH to establish a single database for its Childhood Lead Poisoning Program integrating case-specific screening, case management, and environmental data.	Partial	DPH has made progress implementing this recommendation although still has not yet fully implemented this recommendation. Although in last year's compliance response the department stated the database would be online by the end of June 2002, changes in federal reporting requirements and complexities in data conversion caused delays. However, the department anticipates the new system will be on line by the end of May 2003 and provided copies of the types of standardized reports that will be generated once the system is operational along with its compliance response.