Anthony and Emily Aiuppa had been living in Yellowstone National Park employee housing for 3.5 years, with two young children and a baby on the way, when they learned their home was contaminated with lead. Medical testing soon revealed that the toxin had poisoned their children, according to a lawsuit the family recently filed against the Department of the Interior in U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming. 

The oldest daughter, now 7, struggles with weak, brittle bones that break easily, twice requiring her to use a wheelchair. The impacts on their son and younger daughter remain to be seen.

“The biggest regret of our lives was living in that house,” Emily Aiuppa said.

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The Aiuppas quickly alerted park officials about the situation, and the family was moved to another house. But when they realized the severity of their child’s emerging health problems, and learned more young families are living in similar homes, they hired an attorney and filed the lawsuit, Emily Aiuppa told SFGATE. 

Anthony Aiuppa, a utilities systems operator for the Mammoth water quality lab and treatment plant in Yellowstone, and his wife moved into a historic home in the Fort Yellowstone area of the park in October 2018, when their first daughter was 7 months old. “We were never told anything about lead when we moved in,” Emily Aiuppa said. “Nobody said anything.”

Damage seen on employee housing at Fort Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park, Mammoth, Wyo., June 5, 2020.

Roof damage at Fort Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park, Mammoth, Wyo., Aug. 2, 2023.

Damage seen on employee housing at Fort Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park, Mammoth, Wyo., June 5, 2020.

The Aiuppas loved the house, with big windows and a porch. They had their son in 2021, and in 2022, Emily Aiuppa was again pregnant. In April 2022, a friend and fellow employee made an offhand comment about lead in Yellowstone employee housing, questioning if the Aiuppas’ home was safe. The couple immediately bought a test kit and began swabbing the interior and exterior of the house where their children, then 4 years old and 15 months old, lived, crawled and played. 

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To their horror, all of the samples — of door jams, windows, the porch and other surfaces inside and out — came back bright pink or red, the test’s way of showing a positive detection for lead. A few days later, they tested their children’s blood. Their daughter had 1.4 µg/dL of lead in her blood, and their son had 5.3 µg/dL in his. 

No level of lead is........

© SFGate