June 14th, 2018
A survey of HUD’s Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes (OLHCHH) lead hazard control (LHC) grantees from fiscal years 2010-2012 was conducted for the Office to determine whether the grantees were able (using current tools, methodologies and systems) to consistently achieve dust lead
clearance levels well below the current federal standards of 40 µg/ft2 on floors, 250 µg/ft2 on windowsills and 400 µg/ft2 on window troughs, following lead hazard control activities. A questionnaire was sent to all 124 2010-2012 grantees provided by OLHCHH. A total of 98 grantees returned a completed questionnaire. Twenty seven respondents were 2010 grantees, 32 were 2011 and 39 were from 2012. Of the remaining 26 grantees, 18 were nonresponsive despite repeated contact attempts and 8 were unable to respond for lack of grant funds.
Lead clearance testing results were ultimately collected from 1,552 housing units. There were 7,211 floor clearance samples, 4,893 windowsill clearance samples and 2,787 window trough clearance samples. The sample design ensured that the floor, windowsill and window trough sample results constituted an
approximately random sample of all final clearance results on floors, windowsills and troughs. The data were analyzed to determine the percentage of units cleared at or below various final clearance levels for floors, windowsills and window troughs, taking into account the large number of samples reporting final
clearance results below the laboratory’s RL. RLs for 1 ft2 floor samples ranged from 2 to 20 µg/ft2 , with the majority of grantees (65%) reporting an RL of 10 µg/ft2 . RLs for windowsill and window trough samples depend on the area sampled, which can vary from as little as 0.07 ft2 or less to more than 1 ft2
. Sample areas for sills and troughs were not collected in order to limit the reporting burden on the grantees, and RLs for these samples are therefore unknown.