Pike Enters $121K Lead Paint Settlement

One of New Haven’s largest landlords has agreed to a $121,000 settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over alleged violations of lead-safety rules — the EPA’s latest enforcement action in what environmentalists worry will be a dwindling federal caseload as the Trump administration limits oversight of toxic chemicals.

The EPA accused property manager Pike International and its affiliates of failing to limit exposure to lead-based paint, a neurotoxin that’s known to stunt the development of children’s brains and nervous systems. To settle the case, Pike agreed to pay $12,139 in civil penalties and invest at least $109,246 in lead abatement programs at three apartment complexes: 522 Fountain St., known as Colby Court; 1314 Quinnipiac Ave., known as Quinnipiac Gardens; and 226 Ellsworth Ave.

In a tweet, Rep. Rosa DeLauro thanked the EPA for ​“standing up for kids in New Haven.”

Pike, which collects rent at more than 800 units across the Elm City, stressed that the agreement clearly states that the company does not admit guilt.

“As a service to the New Haven community, Pike agreed to lower the lead levels in some of its community buildings. In all instances, these services are not mandated by federal or state law,” a statement from the company read. (That contradicts a stipulation in the consent agreement: All Pike’s public communications about the lead-abatement projects must include ​“qualifying language” that they were undertaken because of ​“alleged violations of the Toxic Substance Control Act, the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992, and federal regulations promulgated thereunder.”) The company’s statement went on, ​“Pike continues to work with all federal, state and city agencies to make New Haven safer for all its residents.”

In March 2016, the EPA filed an administrative complaint against Pike seeking $197,743 in damages. The complaint also named eight associated limited liability companies and one corporation, which own properties at 175 Park St., 1533 Chapel St., 300 Winthrop Ave., 17 Edgewood Ave., 37 Lynwood Pl., 608 George St., 293 Norton St., 335 Fountain St., 477 Prospect St. and 80 Sherman Ave. The feds maintained that Pike violated two regulations: the Disclosure Rule, which requires landlords to inform prospective tenants about the risks of lead-based paint and their knowledge of its presence in the building before signing a lease, and the Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Rule, which requires contractors to complete an accredited training course in handling lead before renovating pre-1978 buildings. The latter rule, which took effect in 2010, was designed to offset the risk that renovations might chip away underlying layers of paint and potentially fill a unit with dangerous lead dust.

“If you restore an apartment or house that has lead paint in it, and you don’t know what you’re doing, you can easily put children or adults that are reentering the house — and quite often, the workers — at great risk,” said Erik D. Olson, the director of health programs at the National Resources Defense Council. ​“If you’re not using proper equipment and don’t have trained folks doing it, you can stir up huge amounts of lead dust that will settle all over the house, including in ventilation systems.”

Regulators claimed that Pike violated both the rules on ​“numerous” instances (for 14 units at a dozen properties, by the Independent’s tally). The EPA alleged Pike failed to provide tenants with EPA-approved pamphlets about the risks and include a warning about lead poisoning in its leases, failed to obtain federal approvals before starting renovations and use an EPA-certified renovator, and failed to maintain adequate records. Those oversight were significant, the agency said in a press release announcing the settlement, because they violate the only means by which renters can make ​“informed decisions” about whether to move into a unit and can protect themselves from lead exposure during renovations.

Pike argued that, on the whole, the company’s properties were in compliance. ​“The findings of the EPA were in a handful of leases among thousands of signed leases over the 17 years of the company’s existence, which indicates close to a 99 percent compliance record,” the company statement read.

As part of the consent agreement and final order, which was signed in late May and announced Monday afternoon, Pike must set up a management system to ensure compliance within a month and submit all leases and renovation work-orders to the EPA within six months. The company also agreed to hire a third-party consultant and contractor who will both oversee the three properties’ remediation. Progress reports must be filed every six months, and the project must be finished by October 2018. Any missed deadlines will result in a $300 penalty for each day a report is late or up to $1,000 for each day a project is overdue.

Lead-based paint poses a health hazard for young children. The metal, which stores up in the bones along with calcium, has been linked to a range of ailments, including potentially fatal seizures. According to the EPA, poisoning of children can cause lowered intelligence, reading and learning disabilities, impaired hearing, reduced attention span, hyperactivity and behavioral disorders; adults might experience difficulties during pregnancy, high blood pressure, nerve disorders, memory problems and muscle and joint pain.

Because of the health problems, lead paint was banned in 1978, but the latest surveys estimate that it can still be found in 37 million American homes, roughly one-third of the nation’s housing stock. It’s particularly prevalent in New England, where homes are older; in the Elm City, 83 percent of homes were built before 1978, DeLauro’s office said last year.

During Barack Obama’s presidency, the regional office devoted extra resources to public education, inspections and enforcement in Nashua, N.H.; Lewiston and Auburn, Maine; and New Haven, where concentrations levels were thought to be highest. At the time, the EPA inspected 65 sites in the Elm City, prompted 40 companies to become formally certified, and finalized settlements against six others: Whalley Glass Company, JPAA Chen Services of New Haven, Whitney Management and Maintenance Co., DiNuzzo Painting, Hatillo LLC and one who voluntarily admitted non-compliance, Tim Jones New Look Remodeling.

“Children’s exposure to lead continues to be a significant health concern here in New England,” Curt Spalding, then-regional administrator, said in May 2016. ​“This is especially true for kids who live in underprivileged areas and other places where there is a large amount of older housing stock that hasn’t been renovated and lead paint has not been removed.”

Yet environmental advocates fear that the enforcement action against Pike may be one of the last the EPA chooses to pursue, as the new industry-friendly chief Scott Pruitt steers the agency toward slashing regulations. Already, the Trump administration has proposed cutting $2.56 million from RRP training programs and laying off the equivalent of 72.8 full-time employees, according to a 64-page budget memo obtained by the Washington Post.

Those cuts could do significant harm, Olson told the Independent. ​“Far too many kids are still being poisoned by lead. We need strong EPA rules and tough, fair enforcement to prevent this. But the new administration’s EPA is putting our kids’ health at risk by threatening to weaken the lead paint rules, and to gut this important program and its enforcement,” he said. ​“Hopefully, Congress won’t go along with [cuts], but there’s an awful lot of damage that Scott Pruitt and his cronies there can do by weakening the program through regulatory changes or not enforcing it.”

Trade associations, on the other hand, have supported the cuts. Fred Ulreich, the chief executive of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, did not respond to a request for comment by the Independent, but he previously told the Post his organization ​“has long supported moving [RRP] from EPA down to the individual states.” With that move, Ulrecih added, his organization ​“believes that the program can be better run and enforcement can be more vigorous the closer it is to the local contractors.”

In 2016, at the tail end of Barack Obama’s presidency, the EPA entered into 123 settlements for alleged violations of lead-based paint rules, including a major case against Sears Home Improvement Products for 89 alleged violations in six states. In total, that year, the agency netted $1,046,655 in civil penalties and $409,429 in proposed remediation projects. A regional spokesperson for the EPA did not respond to multiple emails requesting the number of enforcement actions the EPA has entered this year.