Do you qualify for free lead pipe replacement in Mpls.?

When Minneapolis resident Jamie Laudert took her two sons for a routine checkup nearly two years ago, she was shocked to learn both her 2-year-old, Leo, and 1-year-old, Dario, had tested positive for elevated lead in their blood.

After the positive tests, officials from Hennepin County and the city of Minneapolis stepped in to help Laudert find and get rid of the lead in her more than 100-year-old home. That meant replacing their windows, putting new treads on the basement stairs, and scraping, then repainting, chipping paint on their porch.

“We never would have been able to afford all of the things that they gave us, and if we tried to do it ourselves, it would have taken us many years to get this work done,” Laudert said during an October 22 news conference in front of her home, where the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development presented city officials with a $6.7 million check for work to mitigate lead exposure. “So we are so incredibly grateful.”

Thanks to an infusion of state and federal funding, Minneapolis is in the midst of a massive effort to remove lead from residential homes, which includes replacing lead service lines at 40,000 homes in the next decade.

The city has completed an inventory of all water service lines in Minneapolis, and letters went out to homeowners with lead service lines in mid-November. The city plans to replace 400 service lines — free of charge to homeowners — by the end of 2024, and another 1,000 in 2025.

If you live in an older Minneapolis home, here’s how you get it inspected:

How does lead show up in homes?

About 80% of homes in Minneapolis were built before 1978, when the federal government banned the use of lead-based paint.

The presence of lead paint itself is not a hazard, said Alex Vollmer, manager of the city’s Lead and Healthy Homes program, in an interview. But the deterioration of the paint through normal wear and tear, like walking on a floor or opening and closing windows, can create dust, which when ingested by a child can, in turn, cause elevated blood lead levels.

“That’s kind of been the historical standard for identifying lead based paint hazards at properties and in performing more abatement,” Vollmer said.

Aging water infrastructure has also been a focus 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 service lines could contaminate a resident’s drinking water and expose them to lead.

Nationally, the cost of replacing an aging service line ranges from $1,200 to $12,300, according to estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency.

What does lead poisoning look like?

Lead poisoning in children and pregnant people can cause damage to the brain and nervous system but doesn’t show immediate outward symptoms, making it nearly impossible to detect without a blood test.

Despite federal regulations, the Legislature passed the Minnesota Lead Poisoning Prevention Act to further prevent and reduce lead exposure to children and pregnant people. The current threshold for elevated blood lead levels is 3.5 micrograms per deciliter, which is down from 5 in 2014 and 10 in 2008.

In 2023, there were more than 100 cases of lead poisoning in Hennepin County, said Amy Waller, a public health nurse with the county, during the news conference on Oct. 22.

When children are found to have elevated blood levels, parents are given education on nutrition and assistance monitoring children’s development going forward.

“Lead is very dangerous, but lead poisoning is preventable,” Waller said. “Learn what lead paint looks like. We want to be using these resources before children are lead poisoned.”

How does lead abatement work?

Lead abatement, or the process of removing lead from a home, starts with an inspection including tests of a home’s high-contact painted surfaces, such as windows, porches, floors, doors and stairs. 

The process of identifying the source of lead could take a few days, then a consultation determines how long the work will take, and whether families can remain in the home during the process. 

As of October, Vollmer’s department has held 19 lead education events in communities around the city. At those events, 265 children were tested for blood lead levels in partnership 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 citywide, and found that more than 600 of them had lead paint hazards. In that same timeframe, the team has spent $3.2 million on contracted services that focused on replacing windows, doors and stair treads.

How can I get my home inspected?

Vollmer said the program uses a number of pathways to engage families. The first is a diagnosis of elevated blood lead levels in a child. The city also has an “open enrollment” option where homeowners can ask for inspections.

The Lead and Healthy Homes program has three grants to fund renovation efforts, all with different eligibility rules based on family income, the age of the home and whether a child lives there, among other factors.

City staff also table at community events and doorknock in priority neighborhoods, or neighborhoods that have more children with elevated blood lead levels, based on state data and data collected by the city.

“We don’t want our children to be used as lead detectors, and we want to make sure that all houses in Minneapolis are safe,” Vollmer said at the news conference. “We believe that affordable housing should not be substandard housing, so we want to provide Minneapolis property owners and residents with tools to make sure that they can keep their family safe.”