By April Reese
University of Georgia
Radon causes cancer. Experts say it’s the second-leading
cause of
lung cancer in the United States, after tobacco smoke, killing
15,000 to 22,000 people a year. Now, a new program can help you
avoid it.
An odorless, tasteless and invisible gas, radon is released
by
the natural decay of uranium in soils. It can easily enter homes
through foundations and well water.
But through a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
initiative,
the University of Georgia Extension Service and the UGA College
of Family and Consumer Sciences now have a program designed to
show how to test for radon in your home. Detail information on
this program is offered at www.gafamilies.com/housing.
Jorge Atiles, UGA’s Extension Service housing specialist,
heads
the program. “You can reduce and prevent the entry of radon in
your home,” he said. “And testing is the first step.”
The program has four part-time radon educators, housed in
extension offices in Gwinnett, Hall, Walton and Sumter counties.
The program has also provided training on indoor air quality and
radon for all extension agents in family and consumer sciences.
Through the radon educators and the FACS extension agents, 5,000
free radon test kits are being offered to Georgia homeowners.
About 1,000 have already been issued.
The data from the testing will help evaluate the risk of
radon
gas for Georgians. The current EPA estimate, Atiles said, is
that
one in five homes is at risk of dangerous radon levels. “We
simply don’t know until we test,” he said.
Testing for radon is easy. Get a free test kit through the
UGA
Radon Education Program from your county UGA Extension Service
office. You can buy test kits, too, from home improvement stores
or from county health departments.
If the radon level in your home tests high, Atiles recommends
testing your home again with a similar device.
The program will only provide one free test. You will have
to buy
follow-up tests on your own. You can get them, though, at a
discounted price ($6.95) with a UGA discount coupon provided by
AirChek, Inc.
According to the EPA, radon in drinking water causes 168
cancer
deaths per year, 89 percent from lung cancer caused by breathing
radon released from water, and 11 percent from stomach cancer
caused by drinking radon-contaminated water.
“About 1-2 percent of radon in indoor air comes from drinking
water,” Atiles said. “However, breathing radon released to air
from household water increases the risk of lung cancer over the
course of your lifetime. Drinking water containing radon could
also present a risk of internal organ cancers, primarily stomach
cancer.”
Testing for radon is the only way to tell whether it’s in
your
home. “If after testing the air you find elevated levels of
radon,” Atiles said, “consider testing your water if you get
your
drinking water from a well.”
The University of Georgia Center for Applied Isotope Studies
(CAIS) can test water for radon. There is a fee for the test.
Contact radiochemist Michael Neary (706-542-6115 or
mneary@uga.edu) to test your well water.
If your radon level is high, Atiles suggests contacting the
UGA
Radon Educators Center to determine the best way to limit the
radon level.
A list of certified radon mitigators is on the Web at
http://radongas.org. You can learn more about radon mitigation
at
http://www.radonfixit.org/.
For training in measurement and mitigation, contact the
Southern
Regional Radon Training Center at 1-800-626-2703.
(April Reese is a student writer with the University of
Georgia
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)