“It’s inexcusable,” Yentel said. “And given the decades of inaction on the radon
testing, it’s clearly purposeful.”
Jon Gant, a former HUD of cial with a key role in the agency’s
2013 decision to recommend but not require testing, said the
newsroom’s ndings showed the voluntary approach hasn’t
worked as hoped.
“They ought to do the testing,” he said of local housing
Action since
contact from
newsroom
Portland, Oregon:
Changed
noti cation policy
for tenants.
authorities. “It’s not that hard.” Omaha: Installed
radon removal
systems.
If it turns out tenants have been breathing radon because the Pittsburgh:
Installed radon
removal systems.
housing agencies weren’t required to test, he added, “then
shame on us.”
To be sure, the nation’s housing authorities face a multibillion-
dollar backlog of other needs. Congress covers most of the
Portland, Maine:
Installed radon
removal systems.
Lowell,
Massachusetts:
Tested basements
in ve buildings.
costs of public housing but doesn’t provide enough money for
repairs. Contending with leaky roofs, moldy walls and broken elevators, some
local of cials do not prioritize the search for an invisible gas whose harms will lie
dormant for years or decades.
Some openly acknowledge not testing for fear of having to spend money to x
what they might nd.
“With testing comes the necessity to correct any de ciencies found,” Tony
Shomin, director of facilities management in Kansas City, Kansas, said in a
statement. He wrote that “with limited funding at this time this is not possible.”
Professional testing typically runs about $60 per unit. And at roughly $1,500 to
$2,500, the cost of a radon removal system in one public housing unit is relatively
small considering the magnitude of risk. Breathing elevated levels of radon over a
lifetime makes a person’s chances of developing lung cancer as high as dying in a
car crash, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.