South Lake Tahoe has been awarded a $1.5 million grant to develop a program to test, mitigate and eliminate lead in local housing.

The funding is from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control. It’s to provide funding to protect children from residential health and safety hazards.

Eighty-five percent of South Lake Tahoe’s housing was built before 1980 when lead was still in some paints that could have been applied to and remain on houses.

Project N-ABLE will provide free testing to all homes in the community. If lead is found in the paint, funds will be available to mitigate or eliminate the hazard and provide for testing of any children residing their to ensure no lead was ingested.