Terry Stokka has lived in Black Forest for 29 years. He is president of the Friends of Black Forest, chairman of the Black Forest Land Use Committee and chairman of the Black Forest Water & Wells Committee.
Radon, the invisible gas
By Terry Stokka
Most of us have heard of radon even if we don’t know what it is or what it does. Some of you have tested and found radon in your homes and have had to install equipment to remove it. Let’s dig deeper and find out more about this mysterious substance.
I would like to thank retired Brig. Gen. Dr. Hans J. Mueh, U.S. Air Force; Ph.D., and former head of the Department of Chemistry at the U.S. Air Force Academy for a paper he wrote titled, “Radon: A Different Perspective.” Several years ago, I had the privilege of meeting and speaking with Dr. Mueh about this subject, and the meeting was most interesting. Many excerpts from that paper are included in this article.
Radon is the natural decay product of radium, which is in the line of the natural decay sequence from uranium, a naturally occurring radioactive element that has been with us since the planet was formed. Uranium is mined in parts of the western United States and processed into forms used for nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons. Since radon is found in rocks and Colorado has lots of rocks that we crush and grind, we lead the country in the amount of radon coming out of the ground. It shows up in the basements we dig for our homes and anywhere that earthmoving is happening. The Environmental Protection Agency once stated, “Radon is the environmental problem posing the highest risk of cancer.” We will see later in this article that such a statement is probably an overstatement.
Radon is measured in picocuries per liter (pCi/L). I don’t know what that means but in Colorado we have about 17 pCi/L in background radon across the state. New homes and homes for sale are often tested for radon; if the reading is over 4 pCi/L, a fan system must be installed to draw air out of the basement into the outdoors and bring fresh air in to replace it. Online you can find radon test kits for purchase to set in your basement for several days. You then seal up the test kit and mail it in to be tested in a lab. We used a test kit and found our reading was 5 pCi/L but we didn’t feel we needed to make any changes.
In deciding what level of radon should be the danger level, the EPA used the “linear no-threshold” concept that comes from the Delaney Clause sponsored by U.S. Rep. James Delaney and approved by Congress in 1958. The model assumes there is no dose at which the effects of radiation are not detrimental. Therefore, they set the harmful level of radon at the lowest level of radon they could measure and came up with 4 pCi/L.
The literature shows several classic but flawed studies regarding radon. One study exposed rats to varying levels of radon to simulate working conditions for miners. The rat studies actually showed longer lives for several populations of rats exposed to fairly high levels of radon and produced none of the same kind of cancers the miners had. Another study looked at cancer rates among uranium miners. Whatever their results, only 16 of the 478 miners studied were non-smokers, which was not considered in the study and certainly could have affected the results. Even though Colorado has higher rates of radon than other states, we have one of the lowest lung cancer rates in the country, so much more study would be necessary to accurately factor in lifestyle and climate.
I would conclude that we are probably over-treating a problem that is not really a problem, and spending money unnecessarily on mitigation equipment that is not necessary. However, the EPA standard is the limit and we must live with that. If the EPA would do some credible, thorough studies, maybe they could change this threshold of 4 pCi/L to something more logical.
Dr. Mueh gave a presentation at the University of Wyoming. After the presentation, an elderly rancher came up to tell him that there was an abandoned mine a few miles from Laramie, where folks would pay to spend time in the mine to cure their aches and pains. Guess what was in that mine? Radon!
Thank you Dr. Mueh for this fascinating perspective on radon.
