UPDATE | PEER: Yellowstone Employees Are Being Exposed To Lead Paint In Housing

Editor's note: This updates with information on progress the Park Service has made with Yellowstone housing.

A whistleblower disclosure filed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility states that Yellowstone National Park employees and their families, including young children and pregnant women, are currently being exposed to harmful levels of lead through the paint in their housing. This filing points out that residents were not warned of potential lead exposure not only from paint but also from dust in vents and soil in adjacent play areas.

Yellowstone became a national park in 1872, making it the oldest national park in the world. Many of the homes for employees were built before 1900, and most remaining homes were built well before 1978, when lead-based paint was finally banned. Park officials acknowledge that around 290 historic residences contain lead-based paint, and many homes still house employees and their families.

A 2021 review prepared for Yellowstone by TetraTech found that “Lead in paint were detected above the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)” lead safety levels in most of the housing units reviewed. In the years since this 2021 inspection report, only a few of the buildings have been safely rehabilitated.

“Yellowstone management has long known about these dangerous conditions but has yet to make them a priority,” stated PEER’s Western Lands and Rocky Mountain Advocate Chandra Rosenthal. “The condition of this housing is both unsafe and completely illegal.”

PEER did not mention that the National Park Service has spent tens of millions of dollars in recent years on improving employee housing. In 2020 the park embarked on a multi-million-dollar project to provide adequate housing for their employees. 

At the time Superintendent Cam Sholly said the park was going to "demolish and replace trailers with high-quality modular cabins, upgrade aging utility lines, perform site improvements, including landscaping, and invest in other housing improvement projects" over the next two years.

"Anyone who thinks this shouldn’t be a top priority has no clue what they’re talking about," Sholly added at the time. "Good talent won’t come to places that have poor housing."

Two years the park announced that it had received a $40 million gift to upgrade employee housing. The money, announced by the National Park Foundation and the National Park Service, was provided by donors who asked to remain anonymous. It's expected to pay for more than 70 modular units to address the shortage of employee housing in the park.

A lack of employee housing is a critical issue across the National Park System. The problem has been exasperated by rundown NPS housing and the advent of home vacation rentals surrounding parks that have drawn down the number of existing rentals while, at the same time, driving up pricing for other rental properties.

On Monday PEER said that the Park Service completed a Lead Hazard Compliance Review 2025 in response to employee complaints which concluded, among other things, that:

• “Evaluating and mitigating exposure risks, especially for vulnerable populations, is a regulatory imperative unmet at [Yellowstone].”
• “Yellowstone’s housing office was unaware of their own HMP [Housing Management Plan] and was unable to answer to crucial elements of managing health hazards in GFH [Government Furnished Housing].”
• Only 21.1 percent of park housing was in full compliance with Family Housing Lead Management policies, noting that “the low Fully Met percentage underscores significant gaps in execution beyond policy, particularly in housing management.”

Currently, a federal lawsuit is pending from a Yellowstone employee whose two young children are suffering from lead poisoning. The family lived in Yellowstone housing for three years beginning in 2018.

Even very low levels of lead exposure in children can lead to a variety of problems, including permanent loss of IQ, learning disabilities, interference with red blood cell production, and stunted physical growth.

PEER has filed their disclosure with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which can order the Secretary of Interior to address any verified wrongdoing.

“A private landlord offering housing under these conditions risks jailtime; if anything, federal landlords should be held to a higher standard,” added Rosenthal, noting that the Park is the target of an ongoing investigation by the EPA on the issue. “We seek outside intervention because business as usual at Yellowstone will leave families in jeopardy for the foreseeable future.”