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Radon Specialists office manager Jasmine LaGreca shows off a Continuous Radon Monitor, a device used by technicians to test the levels of radon in a home. Radon is an invisible, odorless gas that is the second-leading cause of lung cancer nationwide.
MARK A. GENITO/Pocono Record
Got radon?
More than 20 years since radon was deemed common in Monroe, most homes still don't test for cancer-causing gas
Dan Berrett
ByDan Berrett
Pocono Record Writer
January 21, 2007
For two weeks, alarm bells rang every time Stanley Watras left work.
Because his job was at the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant in Montgomery County, those alarms signaled a problem. A very big one.
"It came out on a digital display that I was highly contaminated throughout my entire body," Watras told a reporter from the PBS series "Frontline." "So, obviously, that kind of set me back."
Eventually, Watras figured out that he wasn't picking up radiation from the power plant. It was coming from his home.
Physicists took air samples from inside his house. It was highly contaminated with radon — a naturally occurring, odorless, tasteless and colorless gas produced by the decay of uranium in the ground. The gas has also been linked to lung cancer.
Radon is prevalent in Monroe County, too. Our area lies along a vast, uranium-rich geological belt known as the Reading Prong.
The Watras incident came a few years after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, and it generated widespread headlines. Since then, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued warnings, and the U.S. Surgeon General recommended that all homes test for the gas.
But even now, more than 23 years after Watras walked out of Limerick and into history, few homes either nationwide or locally test for radon.
"It's not something you tend to think about," said Ron Ruman, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. "It's invisible and you can't smell it."
Most radon detection is done as part of the housing inspection process when homes change ownership.
"A homeowner is not going to think about it because they can't sense it," said Paul Houle, a physics professor at East Stroudsburg University and member of the National Radon Safety Board. He estimates that half of all homes in Monroe County have elevated levels of radon.
These radon levels can translate into a health risk. Monroe County has had higher than expected rates of lung cancer and deaths from the disease over the past decade, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
While these rates can't be ascribed solely to radon, the EPA has identified the gas as second only to smoking in causing lung cancer. The agency says radon is responsible for an estimated 21,000 deaths each year nationwide.
The highest radon levels locally can be found in the West End. According to the state's Department of Environmental Protection, average levels of radon in such towns as Brodheadsville, Gilbert and Effort have measured between 14 and 19 picocuries per liter, a measure of radiation see "Radon hotspots" accompanying this story.
Or, to put it another way, people living in homes with this much radon could be carrying about the same risk of lung cancer as those who smoke between 14 and 19 cigarettes a day.
"The West End, fundamentally, has a problem," said Houle, 60, who created one of the first home radon kits and has inspected thousands of homes. His measurements in those areas have revealed even higher levels of picocuries. "They're smoking between one and two packs a day," he said. "And they don't even know it."
What can be done
Fortunately, the gas is both identifiable and fixable. A radon detection kit, which is available for $15-$20 from such businesses as Prosser Labs in Effort, or from Home Depot or Cramer's, can establish radon's presence. If two recordings come back with 4 pCi/l or more, the EPA suggests remediation.
The process of remediation usually involves a visit from workers who bore a hole in the cement slab of a house, then run a pipe out of the ground and through the wall to vent the gas.
It effectively sucks the radon from the ground and dumps it outside. The cost usually runs about $1,000.
Ruman said the DEP has a special message for fast-growing Monroe and Pike counties. The department is urging people building new homes to take care of the problem before the cement slab is even laid. Loose gravel covered with a plastic sheet can trap the gas. It costs less than remediation.
Experts say it's better to address the gas rather than ignore it — especially for those who have lived in the same house for years. "The problem is that damage is cumulative," Houle said.
By the way, if you're worried about what happened to Stanley Watras, he's OK. He's still alive and his story has a happy ending: He left his radon-infested home and started a new career as a radon mitigator.
On the Net:
www.epa.gov/radon/
Radon hotspots in Monroe County
The EPA recommends remediating your home if you have 4 pCi/l of radon or more. The following towns in Monroe County have average readings at or higher than that level:
Brodheadsville, 19.3 pCi/l
Gilbert, 17.8
Kunkletown, 16.7
Saylorsburg, 15.2
Effort, 14.1
Reeders, 12.7
Henryville, 10
Sciota, 8.6
Blakeslee, 7.8
Stroudsburg, 7.4
Swiftwater, 6.9
Delaware Water Gap, 6.6
Tannersville, 6.5
Bartonsville, 6.4
Mount Pocono, 6.2
Shawnee-on-Delaware, 6.1
East Stroudsburg, 6.1
Scotrun, 5.7
Cresco, 5.7
Analomink, 5
Canadensis, 4.6
Long Pond, 4.4
Minisink Hills, 4.3
Pocono Summit, 4.2
Pocono Lake, 4
Buck Hill Falls, 4
To check the radon levels in your zip code, visit: www.dep.state.pa.us/RadiationProtection_Apps/Radon/
Source: Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection
Radon: Life-threatening, or simply a 'sham'?
&byline2;Pocono Record Writer
Len Kelsey and his firm, Radon Specialists in Stroudsburg, have done radon remediations in thousands of homes over the years. But he still encounters skepticism when doing his work.
"Some people think it's a sham," Kelsey said.
Perhaps the problem is that radon is imperceptible. It is a colorless, odorless gas that results from the natural breakdown of uranium in the ground; its tracks are invisible.
"It's hard to determine who has been exposed to radon for how long," said Alberto Cardelle, interim provost at East Stroudsburg University and a professor of public health.
Even so, the Environmental Protection Agency, Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization all warn against the effects of radon.
In academic circles, the question of whether radon is unhealthy or linked to lung cancer has largely been settled. "It's an enormous amount of data," said Paul Houle, a physics professor at ESU. "And it's very persuasive."
Instead, the debate has focused on just how much exposure is too much, and over how long a period. "A lot of the controversy surrounds the benchmarks," Cardelle said.
The evidence is especially clear once people have been exposed to higher levels, above 4 picocuries per liter, for five years or more. But at lower levels and in shorter time frames, the facts are less well known.
"It could be that it's dangerous at lower levels," Cardelle said.
Some theories hold that the same relationship between lengthy exposure to radon and the risk of lung cancer is also at play in shorter ones. Others suggest that slight contact may even be good for you.
"There will always be individuals who see a cloud of doubt," Houle said.
Critics voiced those doubts not long after government agencies started issuing warnings in the late 1980s. Their counter-arguments said that the dangers were vastly overstated and the science inconclusive.
Some pointed out that radon deaths were estimated based on extrapolations of data for miners, whose exposure to radon and other carcinogens is much higher than average.
"Should homeowners consider the radon threat a false alarm?" Cassandra Moore asked, writing for the Cato Institute in 1997. Her answer, essentially, was yes. "The EPA has bought into the radon scare and paid for it with our tax dollars and peace of mind," wrote the former director of the National Association of Realtors.
With time, evidence of radon's ill effects has mounted.
A major study from the University of Iowa in 2005 also analyzed data pooled from seven different residential radon studies in North America. The EPA and other proponents of the dangers of radon have embraced its results.
"The study provides unambiguous and direct evidence of an increased lung cancer risk even at residential radon exposure levels below the U.S. EPA's action level," its authors wrote. "The analysis actually may slightly underestimate the true risk."
But skeptics remain. "Sometimes people attempt to pool a bunch of weak studies to somehow suggest that together they make a stronger case," Angela Logomasini wrote via e-mail. Logomasini belongs to a think tank called the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which promotes free-market approaches to environmental regulation.
"Adding up a bunch of weak cases does not make them stronger," she added.
But Dr. Khemraj Sedani, a lung specialist at Pocono Medical Center said the research, on the whole, supported a strong relationship between radon exposure and lung cancer.
"I'm hoping, as a lung specialist, that as we get more aware of it people will be more proactive," he said. "Small adjustments will have a cumulative effect on health care."
What is radon and how does it get into my house?
Radon is a colorless, odorless gas produced by the decay of uranium.
As a noble gas, it does not bind with other elements. That means it's free to roam wherever it pleases; it's not absorbed by the cement under your home or the rug under your feet.
"It doesn't interact with anything," said Paul Houle of East Stroudsburg University. "It's just going to percolate up."
It will waft through the ground and into the air, where lower atmospheric pressure in your home will suck it in.
Or it can work its way into well water, or even up through the tiny cracks in the cement slab.
"Even the finest crack that you can't see is like the Grand Canyon to radon gas," Houle said.