In recent weeks, residents in hundreds of homes across Maryland received an alarming notice in the mail.

An inspection had illegally cleared their home of risks of toxic lead paint, residents learned in the letters.

“This means your property may still have lead-based paint hazards,” the letters go on. “While we work with your landlord to arrange for a new inspection and certification, please be sure to have any children in the unit tested for lead poisoning and monitor them closely for any symptoms. The safety of children is our most important priority.”

These letters, sent by the Maryland Department of the Environment to around 1,400 homes, are the fallout of a state investigation into one shoddy inspector, a Baltimore-based business called Green Environmental. Officials allege that the business and its owner, Rodney Bryan Barkley, handed out hundreds of certificates deeming properties free of lead hazards when they might, in fact, remain laced with the potent neurotoxin.

Maryland environmental regulators first began looking into Green Environmental in March 2024 and took the business and Barkley to court late last year.

At that time, MDE claimed Green Environmental was responsible for at least 92 erroneous lead-free certificates. Attorneys for the state asked the court to impose penalties, which, if maximally enforced, would total nearly $150 million.

But they soon found the problem was even bigger than they’d realized: On Thursday, MDE announced it had voided an additional 1,400 certificates issued by Green Environmental. The agency also said that the state has filed criminal charges against Barkley for falsification of lead certificates.

At properties inspected by Green Environmental, MDE says at least three children have tested positive for elevated levels of lead in their blood.

These lead clearances depend on “a bit of an honor system,” said Ruth Ann Norton, chair of the state Lead Poisoning Prevention Commission. While the motive behind Barkley’s erroneous certificates isn’t clear, Norton said Maryland has had past troubles with lead inspectors, including some who rubber-stamped certificates on behalf of landlords.

But in 30 years fighting lead poisoning in Maryland, Norton said she’s never seen fraudulent certificates at this scale.

Green Environmental, which describes itself as a “small black-owned business” with personal experience with the harms of lead, conducted much of its work in Baltimore, where lead-based paint once poisoned thousands of children a year.

But the business has inspected homes all over Maryland since 2019. A list of addresses with invalidated lead inspection certificates, provided by MDE, shows properties from Bethesda to Middle River and Hagerstown to Ocean City.

Since the 1990s, regulators have dramatically reduced the number of children poisoned by lead, but in many old buildings where paint peels and chips off the walls, the neurotoxin remains a hazard.

In Baltimore alone, the number of housing units still containing dangerous levels of lead may be over 85,000, according to a 2022 report by the Abell Foundation.

Of the invalidated certifications, about two-thirds are “lead-free” certificates, MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said. These are especially consequential because, typically, old houses must be reassessed each time a home is sold or a new tenant moves in, but any home found to be “lead-free” never needs inspection again.

The remaining voided certificates cleared properties of lead on the inside but not the outside, requiring re-inspection every two years.

Green Environmental handed out these certificates all over Baltimore.

An analysis of addresses where MDE has voided certificates shows many in low-income parts of East and West Baltimore, as well as in just about any neighborhood with old buildings, including clusters in Mount Vernon, Pigtown and Waverly.

On a single block of West Lombard Street, almost 20 apartments had lead certificates voided.

How and why so many homes were erroneously cleared isn’t certain.

According to the state’s lawsuit, Barkley and his business used unlicensed and unregistered equipment to illegally issue lead certificates.

The Baltimore Banner has been unable to reach Barkley for comment on the suit or the state’s invalidation of his firm’s lead certificates, but after the publication of this article attorney Patrick Seidel reached out on Barkley’s behalf.

“Mr. Barkley takes these allegations seriously and has been cooperating with the appropriate authorities throughout the process,” Seidel said in a statement. “He fully recognizes the importance of public health and safety regulations —particularly those designed to protect families and children from potential environmental hazards — and is working with legal counsel to resolve this matter responsibly."

State attorneys also have struggled to reach Barkley. Officials tried to serve him six times before finally reaching him in person at his Station North address in May.

Barkley has not responded to MDE’s allegations in court. Last month, a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge issued an “order of default,” awarding the case to the state after Barkley repeatedly failed to respond.

The judge has yet to issue a judgement, however, and it’s not clear what Barkley’s default means for the monetary penalties pursued by MDE.

Rick Kessler, director of MDE’s Land and Materials Administration, declined to answer questions about the litigation but said that when the agency began to dig deeper into Green Environmental’s inspections, it found that “when there’s smoke there’s fire.”

Since sending out its letters, Kessler said MDE has gotten “an amazing amount” of calls from landlords and tenants.

MDE is responsible for licensing private lead inspectors, but Kessler emphasized that when people abuse this system, officials won’t let it slide.

“We just can’t let people put families at risk for profit,” he said.

Norton, also president of the Baltimore nonprofit Green and Healthy Homes, commended MDE’s response and said she wants to see the business face criminal in addition to financial penalties.

Green and Healthy Homes also looked into Green Environmental’s work in recent months, and Norton said the nonprofit has reason to believe the firm’s operations extended beyond Maryland, including to properties in Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and potentially Virginia.

“We need to be clear that this is unacceptable,” she said. “It’s immoral, it’s dangerous and it goes completely against the mission of the state had to end the toxic legacy of lead.”

At one row home with a voided lead certificate near Druid Hill Park this week, a pair of children’s swim shoes stood beside the front door. In Park Heights, an inflatable kiddie pool sat on the porch of another.

A few blocks away, an employee with Baltimore’s Department of Housing and Community Development hung a flier on a home’s the door with details about the city’s lead abatement services.

The home, a standalone row house, is among more than a dozen in this area with a lead certificate voided after the investigation.

Residents there declined to be interviewed. But the city flier hanging on their door let them know that, if their house is older than 1978 and a young child lives inside, they could qualify for a free lead inspection.

This article has been updated with a statement from Rodney Barkley’s attorney and to correct the spelling of attorney Patrick Seidel’s name.