Dr. Pamela Berger, director of environmental policy in the mayor's office, did speak.
"To my knowledge, there is not [a local ordinance to close the loophole], and I did look. I wish I could tell you that there is, because this is not a very acceptable situation. The policy is flawed, clearly, when this kind of thing can happen. I don't want to suggest that we have anything formal as yet, because we don't, but I think it's an area we need to really think about addressing in the next legislative session."
It's an area that's been addressed in legislative session at least once already, in 1995, when the current Texas law was enacted. Houstonian Rebecca Rex, whose son Justin was poisoned with lead prenatally while Rex and her husband remodeled a Heights-area home, gave pro-legislation testimony before that session and founded United Parents Against Lead in Houston as a clearinghouse for information. Rex's recollection is that the law was hurried through because its key measure, requiring that lead-abatement contractors be certified by the Texas Department of Health, was a prerequisite for the receipt of HUD funds for local lead-abatement projects. The law, with loophole, was enacted, and the HUD money went to Houston's abatement program, now headed by Mike McDaniels.
Rex also remembers speaking with a city attorney who was, at the time, busy drafting a local ordinance that would have closed the loophole and regulated remodeling hazards. The ordinance was to have been part of Councilwoman Helen Huey's Curb Ordinance, but was finally never included, and the attorney, says Rex, no longer works for the city.
So it stands. And in the meantime, at least some contractors seem to be playing fast and loose with the spirit, if not the letter, of the regulations. When contacted by the Press, a representative of Antonio Hernandez Painting -- the contractor who ground the paint off the house next door to the Crimminses -- claimed that Hernandez was indeed certified by the state to do abatement work, but that he had lost the paperwork proof in a recent burglary. The Texas Department of Health, the certifying agency, has no record of any individual or firm including the name Antonio Hernandez on its rolls of certified abatement technicians. Asked if the project of Harvard Street was an abatement, the company's answer was a simple, if damning, "yes."
It's an abatement to the Crimminses' way of thinking as well. Never mind that the legal definitions of abatement turn out to have nothing to do with what's done, and everything to do with what's conveniently said. If the hazard is present, they think, then the law, some law, should be applicable.
Thwarted by the regulatory agencies, stalled by the homeowner and stumped for an avenue of immediate recourse, the Crimminses are filing a formal complaint with the EPA, which will at least serve the purpose of drawing some attention to their particular plight.
"They're the ones who wrote the law," says Ken Crimmins. "Nobody wants to enforce locally. We don't want to really sue the guy, because I know about civil suits and lawyers trying to enrich themselves prolonging the dispute. I want the EPA to make him remove the lead dust from the soil on the property, and then all the contamination is gone and I can rest easy."
But the Crimminses' situation isn't an isolated incident. Just down the street in Sunset Heights, at the corner of Aurora and North Main, an old wood-frame structure with a sign in the window indicating that it was once Morgan's Furniture Shop sits half-stripped in a circle of fresh paint dust and chips, just across the street from Immanuel Temple. The dust, tested by the Press at an EPA-accredited laboratory, came back with a lead content of just over 1 percent -- twice the acceptable level. No sign indicates the name of the contractor doing the work. The firm listed on county tax rolls as owner of the building has no listed phone number.
E-mail Brad Tyer at brad_tyer@houstonpress.com.
