Three paint companies should not have to clean up lead contamination in Rhode Island homes, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The decision reverses a landmark 2006 ruling in which the state was victorious in alleging that Sherwin-Williams Co., NL Industries Inc., and Millennium Holdings LLC created a public nuisance by manufacturing and selling lead-based paint, despite knowing it was unsafe. Lead paint was banned in the U.S. in 1978, but some 240,000 homes in Rhode Island still contain it. The court decided 4-0 that the companies should not be on the hook to spend an estimated $2.4 billion for cleanup, since they could not control how the paint was used. "However grave the problem of lead poisoning is in Rhode Island, public nuisance law simply does not provide a remedy for this harm," said the court opinion. The paint industry has been victorious in similar cases in at least four other states; similar lawsuits are pending in Ohio and California.
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Sam Wells Posted 9:09 am
01 Jul 2008
By 1974, lead paint was getting very hard to find in the Northeast. This might come as a surprise to many. You actually had to order it especially from Rhode Island paint companies that would still sell it. By 1978 you probably could only buy it on the black market, as it was phased-out very quickly from production.
So my point is during those transition years, the paint companies knew about the dangers of leaded paint ... but people had to specifically order it instead of their new line of no-lead paints. I worked in the remodeling business back then and we actually had to drive to Rhode Island to get that "good" white leaded paint for a customer in Connecticut.
Before the 1970's, nobody really knew that leaded stuff was bad. EPA hadn't taken the lead out of gasoline yet - remember the signs saying "this product may contain Tetra-Ethyl Lead"? At that time we were just becoming concerned about the ospreys dying off because of some toxic we really didn't understand.
Sorry to write a book here but the problem is when you repaint the outside of a house and it must be stripped down to the wood because of cracking and peeling. So the problem was the old paint coming off, not the new paint going back over the boards. Gosh, what a mess we made, with burners, grinders, and strippers! The stuff went everywhere with a very distinctive taste in your mouth - little did we know we were poisoning ourselves and any kids who played in the chips and dust.
That paint might have been over a dozen coats applied over a century on the older houses and buildings. You could see the old limestone linseed oil paint (organic!) and the leaded paint in distinct layers. But back before the 1970's we had no clue that the leaded stuff was bad for you.
If you lave little stomach for that, consider that marine paints -- many made in good old Rhode Island - had massive doses of mercury, copper, cadmium, and other bad actors to prevent fouling of the boat bottoms, a subject for another day. -sam
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archigeek Posted 1:36 am
02 Jul 2008
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