Pacmac, I see that you are a very new member to TCW. Welcome to the mix.

I appreciate your taking the time to so thoroughly address each of the questions that I posed and the links that you included were most helpful.

One thing is for certain, the EPA's mew Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule (RRP Rule) is a rapidly approaching reality. And no amount of discussion or analysis is going to do anything to change what is coming. However, more discussion and more analysis regarding the objective and the process can serve to help to both broaden and facilitate our understanding. Personally, the more I look at this move by the EPA the more questions, in general, that I have and I find myself really unlcear as to what the actual agenda is. The more I look the more layers I see.

Pacmac, you wrote, "...this rule is very important to protecting children and worker's health." In addition, you stated, "While the number of children of children with official 'lead poisoning' has declined, research continues to show lower and lower levels harm children. So the actual number of children impacted is quite a bit higher than the official gov't numbers would say. Lead exposure from Renovation has been known to be a problem for a number of years - it just hasn't been addressed the way it was supposed to be for a long time. In some localities a third to half of 'official' lead poisoning cases are associated with renovation." Now Pacmac, I have nothing to debate with you on what you have mentioned here but what you have mentioned has got me to wondering.

I was born in 1951, my brother was born in 55', my parents were born in the late 20s, my grandparents were born in the early 1900s, I grew up with many people and have lived around thousands more over the years who grew up into adulthood, many into senior citizen status while living in houses and working in buildings that were constructed pre 1978. I am now 58 years old. I grew up on ranches and farms and when I became 20 years old I got my first job in the construction industry, which is the industry that I have worked in and continue to do so to this day. My brother also has worked in construction since his early 20s. So, here is where my "wonder" comes in. I wonder why it is, if lead poisoning has been and is such a problem, why is it that I have never personally known or met anyone who is affected with it? During my many years working in construction probably 99.5% of the work I have done has been residential or commercial rennovation/repair and in the process I have worked with countless other construction workers who were within 10 years age of me one side or the other. You would think that with lead poisoning being such a problem that, especially because I have been working in construction for all of these years, I would have at some point come across someone with lead poisioning. And, to reiterate, so many of us (the baby boomers) grew up in, went to school in and worked in pre 1978 buildings. So one would figure that the baby boomers in general, and their parents and grandparents would be experiencing a pandemic of lead poisoning. However, that is not the case. Yet, in 09' we have this dire problem with children being affected with lead poisoning. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

There is more that you brought up Pacmac that I want to address but I will have to piece meal my responses.

Thank you again for taking your time to answer my queries.