Two companies—Northeast Housing, LLC, and Balfour Beatty Military Housing Management, LLC—face fines of more than $150,000 from the US Environmental Protection Agency for violating federal lead paint disclosure laws at two Navy bases in New England.
The EPA's complaint asserts that the two companies failed on multiple occasions over several years to notify prospective tenants, including families with young children, about potential lead paint hazards in housing managed by the firms at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, and the Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut.
For the alleged violations of the Lead Based Paint Disclosure Rule, the companies face a possible fine of $153,070. According to the EPA's complaint, the two companies failed to comply with the Disclosure Rule when they entered into 13 contracts to lease target housing for military personnel from 2007 to 2010 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the US Naval Submarine Base.
Specifically, the companies failed to provide available records and reports regarding lead-based paint and/or lead-based paint hazards to 13 lessees (10 lessees at Portsmouth and three lessees at the Connecticut base). Of the lessees, nine were families with children, including seven families with children under the age of six.
Approximately 25 target housing units are located at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where housing was built in the 1800s and early 1900s. The Naval Submarine Base in Groton contains 735 target housing units, which were built in the early 1960s.
According to the EPA, Lead Disclosure Rule is designed to provide residential renters and purchasers of pre-1978 housing with enough information about lead-based paint in general and known lead-based paint hazards in specific housing, so that they can make informed decisions about whether to lease or purchase the housing.
