When Minneapolis resident Jamie Laudert took her two sons for a routine checkup nearly two years ago, she was shocked to learn that both her 2-year-old son Leo and 1-year-old son Dario had tested positive for elevated lead levels in their blood.
After the positive tests, officials from Hennepin County and the city of Minneapolis stepped in to help Laudert find and eliminate the trace in her more than 100-year-old home. That meant replacing her windows, adding new treads to the basement stairs, and scraping, then repainting and peeling the paint off her porch.
“We could never have afforded all the things they gave us, and if we had tried to do it ourselves, it would have taken us many years to do this work,” Laudert said during an Oct. 22 news conference in front of her home, where the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development presented city officials with a check for $6.7 million for measures to reduce lead pollution. “That’s why we’re so incredibly grateful.”
Thanks to state and federal funding, Minneapolis is currently conducting a massive effort to remove lead from homes. This includes replacing lead-containing service lines in 40,000 homes over the next decade.
The city completed an inventory of all water service lines in Minneapolis and letters were sent to homeowners with leading service lines in mid-November. The city plans to replace 400 utility connections, free to homeowners, by the end of 2024 and another 1,000 in 2025.
If you live in an older home in Minneapolis, here's how to get it inspected:
How does lead occur in households?
About 80% of Minneapolis homes were built before 1978, when the federal government banned the use of lead paint.
The presence of lead paint itself does not pose a danger, Alex Vollmer, manager of the city's Lead and Healthy Homes program, said in an interview. But the deterioration of the paintwork due to normal wear and tear, such as: Other activities, such as walking on the floor or opening and closing windows, can lead to dust formation, which if ingested by a child can lead to increased lead levels in the blood.
“That’s kind of been the historical standard for identifying lead-based paint hazards on properties and taking other mitigation measures,” Vollmer said.
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Aging water infrastructure has also been a problem for the city, as hundreds of water service lines — the pipes that connect the city's water main to the meter inside a resident's property — are made of lead and need to be replaced. The utility lines could contaminate a resident's drinking water and expose them to lead.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates the cost to replace an aging service line ranges from $1,200 to $12,300 nationwide.
What does lead poisoning look like?
Lead poisoning in children and pregnant people can cause damage to the brain and nervous system, but has no immediate external symptoms, making it difficult to detect without a blood test.
Despite federal regulations, lawmakers passed the Minnesota Lead Poisoning Prevention Act to further prevent and reduce lead exposure among children and pregnant people. The current limit for elevated blood lead levels is 3.5 micrograms per deciliter, down from 5 in 2014 and 10 in 2008.
There have been more than 100 cases of lead poisoning in Hennepin County in 2023, county nurse Amy Waller said during the Oct. 22 news conference.
If elevated blood counts are detected in children, parents receive information about nutrition and support in monitoring the children's further development.
“Lead is very dangerous, but lead poisoning is preventable,” Waller said. “Learn what lead paint looks like. We want to use these resources before children are poisoned with lead.”
How does lead reduction work?
Lead reduction, or the process of removing lead from a home, begins with an inspection, including testing of a home's high-contact painted surfaces, such as: B. Windows, porches, floors, doors and stairs.
The process of identifying the source of lead can take a few days. A consultation will then determine how long the work will take and whether families can stay at home during the process.
As of October, Vollmer's department has conducted 19 leading educational events in communities around the city. At these events, 265 children were tested for blood lead levels in collaboration with the Sustainable Resources Center's Leadie Eddie mobile testing van.
Since 2022, the Lead and Healthy Homes program has proactively inspected more than 750 homes across the city and found that more than 600 of them had lead paint hazards. During the same period, the team spent $3.2 million on contracted services focused on replacing windows, doors and stair treads.
How can I have my house inspected?
Vollmer said the program uses a number of ways to engage families. The first is the diagnosis of elevated blood lead levels in a child. The city also has an “open enrollment” option where homeowners can request inspections.
The Lead and Healthy Homes program includes three grants to fund renovation efforts, all with different eligibility requirements based on, among other things, family income, the age of the home and whether a child lives there.
Based on state data and data collected by the city, city staff also attend community events and door knock in priority neighborhoods or neighborhoods where there are more children with elevated blood lead levels.
“We don’t want our children to be used as lead detectors, and we want to make sure all homes in Minneapolis are safe,” Vollmer said at the news conference. “We believe affordable housing should not be substandard housing, so we want to give property owners and residents of Minneapolis tools to ensure they can protect their families.”
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