Beginning Wednesday, anyone selling or buying a home in Minnesota will have a little more paperwork to add to the pile already required.

But the little extra work is worth the benefit to many people’s health — perhaps even their lives.

The Minnesota Radon Awareness Act expands on an earlier law that required new homes to have a passive radon mitigation system built into them.

The new law requires anyone selling a home to provide information on whether the structure was ever tested for radon and if so, what the results were. Any tests have to be documented.

It’s a reasonable law to help people guard against the odorless, colorless, tasteless radon that naturally seeps up through the ground and can find its way into homes. Long-term exposure to radon can cause cancer. It is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States and more than 21,000 deaths are attributed to radon each year.

Minnesota has a higher radon problem than most states, with an estimated 1 in 3 existing homes having radon levels higher than recommended.

— Mankato Free Press