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Applying for Certification
Is
Lead Certification Required
for the Type
of Work I do?
California
Department of Health Services -- Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch
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There
are currently some situations which require you to be certified. Even if
certification is not required in your situation, DHS encourages you to
become trained and certified to help protect yourself, your family and
your clients from lead poisoning. The following questions may help you
decide if you need to be certified.
Will
you be inspecting for lead or doing clearance testing in California?
If you plan to receive pay for doing lead inspections,
lead risk assessments or lead clearance inspections, in residential or
public buildings in California, State law requires you to be a Certified
Lead Inspector/Assessor, or be a Certified Lead Project Monitor if you
plan to do only clearance inspections (Title
17, CCR, Section 36100(a)(1)). This law does not apply to activities
done to ensure Cal/OSHA compliance (e.g. paint chip or dust wipe sampling)
or representative sampling done for waste segregation and disposal purposes.
If an owner has hired you to inspect some housing for
lead, in order to get an exemption from the Federal real estate disclosure
rule, you must be State certified (Residential
Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992; Title X, Section 101).
This Federal rule also gives home buyers a full 10 days to inspect a home
for lead, provided they use a State certified inspector. Contact the National
Lead Information Center at 1-800-424-LEAD for more information about this
rule.
Will
you be designing lead abatement projects in California?
If you plan to prepare or design plans for the abatement
of lead-based paint or lead hazards from residential or public buildings
in California, State law requires you to be a Certified Lead Supervisor,
Project Monitor or Project Designer (Title
17, CCR, Section 36100(a)(1)).
Will
you be abating lead in California?
If you plan to do any work designed to reduce or eliminate
lead hazards, from residential or public buildings in California, State
law requires you to be a Certified Lead Supervisor, Project Monitor or
Project Designer (Title 17, CCR, Section
36100(a)(1)). This law does not apply
to abatement activities, also known as "interim controls", which are designed
to reduce or eliminate lead hazards from a building for less than 20 years.
Will
you be doing lead work in a school?
If you plan to inspect for lead or do lead abatement
activities in a public elementary school, pre-school or daycare center,
the California
Education Code, Section 32243(b) requires you to be trained and certified.
Public schools are those that are funded by the State or Federal government.
Will
you be exposed airborne lead dust?
If you will be working in a residential or public building
and the lead-related construction work you plan to do will expose you to
airborne lead at or above the 8-hour permissible exposure limit (PEL) of
50 µg/m3, California OSHA's Title
8, California Code of Regulations Section 1532.1 requires you to be
trained and certified. Check with your health and safety supervisor about
the air monitoring results for your job site. You can also contact the
Department of Health Services, Occupational Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch
at (510) 540-3448 for more information about the Cal/OSHA regulations.
Are
you doing work on a HUD project?
If the lead-related construction project you plan to
do is funded by the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), or if the work will
be done in HUD funded housing, HUD policies may require you to be certified.
For example, HUD requires certification for pilot lead abatement projects.
Check with your HUD contact person about whether certification is required
for your project.
Do
your work specifications require certification?
Many private and public agencies, such as city or county
governments, lenders and funding agencies, are beginning to require certification
for lead-related construction personnel. Check with your local development
agencies, lenders, funders before you bid on a job, to see if certification
is required.
You
may not need to be certified!
There are some work activities involving lead-based paint
and lead hazards that do not required you to be certified. Listed
below are some such situations. For more information, call the Lead-Related
Construction Information Line at 1-800-597-5323 and ask to speak to a specialist
about whether you need to be certified.
Although certification may not be required for the
type of work you plan to do, you may still have to comply with Cal/OSHA
standards, California Health & Safety Codes or other regulations when
working with lead hazards.
Commercial/Steel
Structure Work:
Californiaâs Title 17 regulations governing accreditation,
certification and work practices for lead-related construction do not apply
to work done on steel structures. If you do lead-related construction
on industrial buildings, warehouses, factories, storage facilities, ships,
bridges, tanks, towers or other buildings that are non-residential and
generally not open to the public, you are not currently required to be
certified.
General
Industry Work:
Californiaâs Title 17 regulations apply only to
work done in the lead-related construction field. If you work with
lead in an industrial setting, such as in battery manufacturing, radiator
repair, metal working, electronics manufacturing, foundry work or welding,
you are not required to be certified.
Hobbies:
If you use lead in your hobby, such as stained-glass,
re-loading, fishing or lead-toy casting, you are not required to be certified.
Cal/OSHA
Compliance Testing:
You are not required to be a certified Lead Inspector/Assessor
in order to do testing activities that are designed to ensure compliance
with Cal/OSHA work practice standards. Examples of such activities
include collecting paint chips, soil, dust wipe and air monitoring samples
to test worker lead exposure levels and collecting dust wipe samples to
ensure containment.
Waste
Segregation Sampling:
You are not required to be a certified Lead Inspector/Assessor
in order to do representative sampling of worksite debris, to determine
the amount of lead in that debris, for waste segregation and hazardous
waste disposal purposes. Examples of such sampling include solid
waste (SW-846) testing to determine total metal concentration, and Waste
Extraction Testing (WET) or Total Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP)
testing to determine soluble metal concentration.
Testing
Your Home for Lead:
Only those who are paid to do lead inspections are required
to be certified Inspector/Assessors. This means that you may take
paint chip samples, dust wipe samples, soil samples and use lead testing
kits to check for lead hazards in your home or yard without being certified.
You may also help a friend or relative test their home or yard for lead,
provided you do not receive compensation or pay for doing so.
Renovation,
Repair and Repainting Work:
Non-certified people may do renovation, repair or repainting
projects on a home, provided the projects are not specifically designed
to abate lead hazards.
Maintenance workers for residential and public buildings,
such as apartments, schools, stores, theaters and offices, may do operations
and maintenance work on those buildings without being certified, provided
the work is not specifically designed to abate lead hazards.
Temporary
Lead Hazard Control Measures:
Certification is not required for those who design or
work on projects intended to reduce lead-based paint or lead hazards from
a residential or public building for less than 20 years. Such work,
involving methods called ãinterim controlsä, is designed to
make buildings lead-safe by temporarily controlling, but not permanently
removing, the lead-based paint or lead hazards.
IMPORTANT: If you perform projects using
interim controls to abate lead-based paint or lead hazards, you must follow
the guidelines outlined in Chapter 11 of the U.S. Housing & Urban Developmentâs,
Guidelines for the Evaluation
and Control of Lead-Based Paint Hazards in Housing (also available
from HUD User at 1-800-245-2691). You must also comply with Californiaâs
work practice regulations for lead-related construction (Title
17, CCR, Sections 36000 and 36100) including notifying DHS of abatement
activities and using containment and work practices that prevent lead contaminated
dust, soil or paint debris from spreading to non-work areas.