The Denver Housing Authority has itself discovered radon in the past.
Spokeswoman Stella Madrid told the newsroom in 2018 that Denver had not
tested public housing for radon and there were “no prevalent issues” in
apartments owned by the housing authority.
The agency changed its story this year, saying Denver had, in fact, done some
radon testing. And documents obtained through an open records request show
the housing authority turned up big problems.
Radioactivity in a maintenance storage room in the basement of a public housing
tower was 177.1 picocuries per liter, 44 times the federal action level. That was in
2005.
The Denver Housing Authority has yet to test 70% of its apartments for radon, including at the Westridge Homes
complex. The Oregonian/OregonLive distributed its own test kits there, and three units showed high levels of the
carcinogenic gas in two rounds of testing. (Photo by Joe Mahoney/special to The Oregonian)
Two of four units sampled at a large public housing complex had high radon levels
in 2010. Even after crews installed a radon removal system throughout the
complex, testing two years later still found one unit above the federal standard.
And in 2013, the agency tested a different public housing complex. Of cials found
high radon levels in 21 of the 28 units tested.
While those discoveries prompted repairs, Denver has yet to conduct any testing
across 70% of its public housing units. Guerrero said the agency will check for
radon during major renovations or redevelopment projects, as it has done in the
past. But Denver’s construction schedule shows it will take until 2025 or longer to
complete that work.
Some complexes have no renovations on the calendar.
“We feel we are being proactive in addressing this across the entire portfolio,”
Guerrero said.