Senate committee hears experts and industry on bill to require radon disclosure in property sales

Senate Industry and Business Committee members on Friday heard more than an hour of testimony on Senate Bill 2204, a measure to require residential property sellers to disclose what they know about radon testing and mitigation to prospective buyers.

The bill’s sponsor and committee chair, Senator Barta, opened the hearing and framed the bill as an information and education measure rather than a testing or mitigation mandate. He said the draft amendment under consideration would limit the disclosure requirement to residential transactions and clarify that sellers must disclose results in their possession or those reasonably available to them.

The issue matters because radon is a recognized carcinogen that is difficult to detect without testing. “Two out of three homes in North Dakota have high radon,” said Gary Schwartz, professor and chair of the Department of Population Health at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, citing his research and state surveys. Dr. Schwartz told the committee the state’s county averages exceed the Environmental Protection Agency mitigation level of 4 picocuries per liter (pCi/L), and said the average home in Grand Forks measured about 11.7 pCi/L.

Why it matters:…