Clearance Fail, a TCLP Result, and a Realtor in a Hurry
You supervised abatement of eight windows, two doors, and 300 sq ft of wall in a vacant 1948 single-family house. Final cleaning is done and the visual inspection is clean. The buyer's certified inspector then took clearance wipes: three floors at 12–30 µg/ft², sills at 80–190 µg/ft², and one window trough at 520 µg/ft². The crew generated 40 bags of debris and two 55-gallon drums of wash water. A composite paint-chip sample leached 6.8 mg/L lead on TCLP. The realtor wants to close Friday, asks whether the cleaning crew can take the drums "for the community garden," and wants to reuse the debris bags on the next job.
1. Do these results pass or fail, and what happens before anyone occupies the house?
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The call: The job fails clearance. The house is not occupiable and the abatement is not complete.
Reasoning:
- The trough result of 520 µg/ft² is above the federal clearance level for window troughs (400 µg/ft²). Floors (12–30) and sills (80–190) are under their respective clearance levels of 40 and 250 µg/ft², but a single failing component fails the clearance.
- Next step is not re-sampling - it is re-cleaning. Reclean the failing trough and the surfaces that feed it (sash, sill, adjacent floor), using HEPA vacuuming followed by wet washing, then repeat clearance sampling across the sampled component types before re-occupancy.
- Confirm who is performing clearance: it must be a certified inspector or risk assessor (or a technician under their supervision) who is not self-certifying the abatement work; many authorized states require independence from the abatement contractor. Your own visual pass is not clearance.
- Tell the realtor in writing that the house cannot close or be occupied until a passing clearance report exists, and give her the actual date it is likely - Friday is not a factor you can work with. Verify the current state-adopted clearance numbers, since federal hazard standards and clearance levels are different figures and states adopt them on their own schedule.
2. Classify the debris and wash water and say where each goes.
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The call: The paint waste is a characteristic hazardous waste; the drums do not go to a garden.
Reasoning:
- A TCLP result of 6.8 mg/L exceeds the 5.0 mg/L regulatory limit for lead, so the waste exhibits the toxicity characteristic (D008). It must go to a permitted treatment, storage, and disposal facility under a hazardous waste manifest, and land disposal restrictions apply - it must be treated to the applicable standard before land disposal.
- Practically: keep containers closed and labeled, accumulate within the allowed time and quantity limits for your generator status, and do not commingle hazardous waste with non-hazardous debris to avoid pulling the whole load into the hazardous stream.
- The wash water is its own determination: if it exhibits the characteristic it is hazardous waste; if not, it still cannot go to a storm drain, a yard, or bare ground. Check state rules for discharge to a sanitary sewer with approval.
- The answer to the realtor and to the cleaning crew is no. Giving away hazardous waste is an illegal disposal that follows your firm's name, not theirs.
- Reusing the bags is a false economy: contaminated bags become a dust source in the next client's home and can fail that clearance.
3. What records come out of this job, who keeps them, and for how long?
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The call: Three separate record systems with three different retention clocks - do not collapse them into one file.
Reasoning:
- Abatement records: the abatement report (work practices, dates, rooms and components, waste disposal, clearance results and who did them) is retained by the abatement firm for at least three years under the federal rule; the state may require longer, and the property owner and future occupants have interests in it. The failed clearance and the re-clearance both belong in the file.
- Employee exposure records: personal air sampling and monitoring results are retained 30 years under OSHA's lead standard.
- Employee medical records: blood lead results and medical opinions are retained for the duration of employment plus 30 years, and kept confidential.
- Waste records: manifests and accumulation documentation, generally three years under RCRA.
- Also keep worker training certificates and respirator fit test and medical clearance records. Give the owner the clearance report and keep a duplicate - the realtor's Friday deadline will not be the last time someone asks for it.