Archive for July, 2010
Fixing The RRP Law
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010It’s safe to say that, when Congress passed the “Repair, Remodeling, and Painting” (RRP) law, the country was distracted. It wasn’t just a presidential election year, it was a historic presidential election. The war in Iraq was still front page news, Afghanistan was on the rise, the housing market was collapsing, and then came the financial meltdown. RRP was so far under the radar it would have taken a submarine to find it.
So, while nobody was looking, we ended up with a law that was so poorly written its implementation has been postponed twice (and it looks like it will probably be postponed a third time); EPA keeps changing the rules, so even knowing exactly what defines compliance is a moving target; the NAHB is filing suit; and firms performing jobs following the new rules (or trying to) have discovered that even the most outrageous sounding predictions of how much compliance would add to job costs have proven to be low. Meanwhile, the number of jobs being done under the table by unlicensed contractors, or by owners escaping compliance and its associated costs by doing it themselves, is growing. (I’ve heard of three in just the last month!)
In short, things are such a complete mess that the law may never actually be implemented or, if it ever is, will be a nightmare for everyone. Worst of all, for all the expense and headaches it will cause, it won’t solve the problem. So, what to do?
First, let’s understand the real problem: The dangers of lead in paint isn’t a new revelation. Trade journals have written about it for decades, and competent contractors have always worked in a reasonably safe manner — cleanliness being the biggest weapon against lead paint dust. Setting aside the problem of incompetent contractors for a moment, the real problem is the lead based paint that still exists in places the RRP law is unlikely to reach: Rentals inhabited by the poor (“slum lords”), in older homes inhabited by either low income home owners or older folks living on fixed incomes. Folks in these homes aren’t just exposed to the lead paint from their do-it-yourself painting projects, but through natural sluffing of the paint through daily use: Opening and closing cabinet doors and windows, sliding everything from cups to flower pots along window sills, washing surfaces with a wash rag that is then used on dishes, and so on. Too, many major interior repainting projects are done between habitation. A renter moves out, the landlord repaints (do-it-yourself style), leaving paint dust in corners, closets, cabinets, and ledges, and another renter, perhaps one with young children, moves in.
So unless we’re prepared to crack down hard on do-it-yourself home improvement (a tactic that would undoubtedly fail), regulation is not going to solve the problem anymore than following even the strictest interpretation of the RRP law while performing a bathroom remodel is going to remove the lead from the old kitchen cabinets. Rather, I propose a three prong approach that addresses the entire problem, without this mess of overblown and ineffective regulation:
- Educate, don’t regulate. Education has proven effective again and again at dealing with the most intractable problems. And let’s face it, most painting is not done by professionals, it’s done by citizens. Teach citizen painters about the dangers of lead paint, how to test for it, and how to safely prep a painting surface and clean up afterwards. After all, there’s nobody more protective of a child than the parents. Also, rather than this silliness of allowing only “certified” testers able to test use “only EPA certified” test kits, let citizens use do-it-yourself kits they can buy in the hardware store. Do-it-yourself lead test kits are about as likely to replace professional testing as home pregnancy tests did doctors office pregnancy tests. More is better, even if the tests are less accurate — a fact package labeling would logically acknowledge. It increases participation and involvement, and involvement is the key to ultimate success.
- Building professionals should be required to adopt clean work habits. Yes, this likely means more regulation, inspection, and testing, but it should be done at the state or local level where it can be enforced as a matter of routine, not by the EPA who has neither knowledge, experience, or infrastructure to be part of the daily building inspection process.
- Building professionals should become the nation’s “first responders”. As professionals, they should be the ones the public can turn to for reliable, professional, lead testing, do-it-yourself oriented lead safe practices training, and so on. Will these lead safe certified contractors charge for the service? Surely. But to baby Johnny’s young parents, paying for a bit of on the job training is a lot cheaper than hiring that contractor to do the job for them, and for that small fee they — and we — have the assurance that they’re making their home safer for their child.
Educate the public, require clean work habits, and ensure that lead safe certified contractors are empowered to test for lead and train the public, and we will have addressed the lead problem at all levels of society. Even better, we will have increased awareness of lead poisoning. And an educated, involved public is never a bad thing.
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The Park Project Nears Completion
Monday, July 5th, 2010
Well, after having the size and scope of the project tripled earlier this year, the Park Project is in finally in in the home stretch! CEQA has been restarted. All the public agencies are doing their reporting thing. The electrical engineer is finishing up the electrical panel design and doing the lumins calculations. I’m working on the plumbing. The NGO is putting together his grants for the restoration work. By fall we’ll be ready to sit down with the supervising engineer and scour the construction documentation one more time before handing the package over to the client. Everything will be ready to go to the State for final approval whenever he’s ready.
One of the things we’re most proud of on this job: We’ve been able to save our client a little over $100,000; about 10% of the estimated $1 million cost to build out the entire project — not including another estimated $750,000 in grant funded restoration work. And along the way we were able to divide construction into two halves so that the owner (who is considering building the project himself, rather than hiring us to do it) can build out in two separate phases. This will allow him to build the most lucrative section of the park first, then use the revenue it generates to fund the other half.
This project has been one of the most enjoyable we’ve ever done and I hope we’ll be able to do more “Special Occupancy Parks” in the future. Most enjoyable was blending environmental restoration and recovery with a design for the park that has minimal environmental impact on either the park area or the very sensitive natural surrounding areas.
And now, some pictures and models of the project in process:
The picture at right shows what will be the main area of pull-throughs, with a row of right-side back-ins behind it. The road in the bottom left hand corner is dirt and was originally constructed by the local community services district when they laid a new sewer main. It will be retained and paved with a permeable material rather than hard surface asphalt. The native evergreen trees will be retained and the native plants will be moved to other areas of the park to create a natural barriers in sensitive areas.
Here’s a beautiful view of the creek we’re trying to restore. Despite it being classed as an ‘urban stream’ it’s still in very good condition and has both trout and steel head in it. Unfortunately, younger steel head cannot make it back into the creek because of the huge jumps shown in the second photo. (The individual looking at the culvert is an expert in stream restoration.) To add insult to injury, the young fish must then make a very long swim with no rest through that culvert that goes beneath a major highway. Adult fish can swim the gauntlet, which is why there are very young fish still in the stream. Though not on Park property, there are plans to use State funds available for the purpose to correct this fish ladder system and rip-rap the culvert. Another insult to the fish is the surfactants you see floating on the water in the top picture. It’s coming from upstream, and The California Department of Fish and Game has been trying to catch the individual pouring soap into the creek for a couple of years now.
Invasive plant species are another issue that will be addressed. On the tree leaning out over the creek (top photo, above) you can see English Ivy attached to the trunk. At right the same stream expert is discussing the removal of the English Ivy and the eucalyptus with the Fish and Game restoration expert. Eucalyptus oil is very toxic. Some studies have suggested that they sterilize fish eggs laid in the river gravel. Behind the Fish and Game guy is a streams and trails expert. To his left and right representatives from the Park.
To facilitate all this restoration work, I ended up having to do a topographical survey of over three acres of stream area, then translated that into mapping data for CAD use. Outsourcing that work alone would have cost the client some $30,000, according to bids I received (and rejected) to address the FEMA flood zone issue several months earlier. (Yeah, that’s me in the photo.)
Finally, here’s a quick little model of the bathroom the supervising engineer and I designed for the new park area. 
The original bathroom is a wood structure built on top of a two foot masonry stem wall. The shower stalls were also built of wood powder nailed into the concrete floor. The results were predictable. Because bathrooms and laundry facilities are unheated, and always damp, the building is now laden with rot. The men’s shower stalls had to be completely rebuilt this last winter. So this building is built entirely out of CMU block — including the interior walls and shower stalls. We also designed a plumbing maintenance corridor into the building. Access is through the wrought iron door you see in the center of the wall. It also provides access to the attic above. The mens and womens bathrooms and showers are the doors (ThermaTru Fiberglass Entry Door Systems) to the left and right. Not visible is the laundry facility and mechanical room at the rear of the building. The gable end siding is Hardy Select Cedarmill. The roofing is ‘Chestnut’ from CertainTeed’s ‘lifetime warranty’ Presidential TL line.
Independence Day: A Look Back
Sunday, July 4th, 2010Cruise around the web on this day of independence and, in spite of the present polarized political state and caustic political rhetoric, complete with a new poll out showing the nation divided right down the middle on whether President Obama has the nation headed in the right, or wrong, direction, and you’ll find all kinds of links, like this one, to the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution. It’s easy, from our nostalgic point of view here in the 21st century, to forget that back when our new country was being founded, things were just as divided, just as tempestuous, as they are today. “Let us now attend to the consequences of this enormous innovation, and daring encroachment, on the liberties of citizens,” wrote a columnist for the Pennsylvania Herald on October 17, 1787. He was replying to a speech by James Wilson given in Philadelphia on October 6th of that same year. Wilson was a supporter of the draft of the proposed constitution that would form the basis of a United States of America.
The stakes of their choices, and of the citizens of the colonists in accepting or rejecting the now famous documents on which our great republic is based, were no less critical to their future (for they could only scarcely imagine the future in which we now live) than ours in how we deal with the seemingly insurmountable issues of our day. They, like us, feared that an unruely majority might trample the will of an honest minority, that individuals and monied interests might trod underfoot the less fortunate members of society. And they understood that popular opinion shifts like the changing winds. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, James Maddison observed:
Those who contend for a simple Democracy, or a pure republic, actuated by the sense of the majority, and operating within narrow limits, assume or suppose a case which is altogether fictitious. They found their reasoning on the idea that the people composing the Society, enjoy not only an equality of political rights; but that they have all precisely the same interests, and the same feelings in every respect. Were this in reality the case, their reasoning would be conclusive. The interest of the majority would be that of the minority also; the decisions could only turn on mere opinion concerning the good of the whole, of which the major voice would be the safest criterion; and within a small sphere, this voice would be most easily collected, and the public affairs more accurately managed. We know, however, that no Society ever did or can consist of so homogeneous mass of Citizens. In the savage State indeed, an approach is made towards it; but in that State little or no Government is necessary. In all civilized Societies, distinctions are various and unavoidable. A distinction of property results from that very protection which a free Government gives to unequal faculties of acquiring it. There will be rich and poor; creditors and debtors; a landed interest, a monied interest, a mercantile interest, a manufacturing interest. These classes may again be subdivided according to the different productions of different situations & soils, & according to different branches of commerce, and of manufactures. In addition to these natural distinctions, artificial ones will be founded, on accidental differences in political, religious or other opinions, or an attachment to the persons of leading individuals. However erroneous or ridiculous these grounds of dissention and faction, may appear to the enlightened Statesman, or the benevolent Philosopher, the bulk of mankind who are neither Statesmen nor Philosophers, will continue to view them in a different light.
–James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, New York, October 24, 1787 (Spelling and capitalization of the original document retained)
So on this day, of all days, while reminiscing about the wisdom of those who crafted our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of Rights, let us especially remember that they did so under the same stresses and strains, and in the same highly charged and politically polarized environment that we find ourselves today. Yet they succeeded and met the challenges of their time.
And so can we!
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