Time to revisit an old danger

by Dave Young, News2

November 13, 2007

DENVER (KWGN) — It's seeping up through your basement floor right now, if yours is like most homes in Colorado: A gas that's colorless, odorless and deadly.

"Colorado has most of its 65 counties at high risk, at 'level one' for having elevated radon," said Joe Vranka the state's leading radon scientist.

Vranka ran a couple of random tests on my basement for our story.

He says the Colorado Department of Health and Environment wants more people to be aware of radon's danger here because the gas is the second leading cause of lung cancer behind smoking.

"For non-smokers it is the leading cause," said Vranka, "And if you do smoke, it significantly increases your risk of getting lung cancer. "

Radon gets into your home through cracks in the basement floors and walls, expansion joints and crawl spaces.

The deadly gas is basically a nuclear disintegration product of uranium in the soil, which is plentiful in Colorado.

"This is the number one entry point for radon," said Terry Nelson of American Scientific & Environmental Consulting, pointing to open cracks and joints in a basement.

Nelson's one of the state's leaders in reducing radon in your home, a process called "mitigation."

Pressure in your house is usually negative, or has less pressure than the surrounding environment, allowing radon to be trapped inside.

So mitigation involves sealing entry points in your basement and foundation, creating a vacuum under the floor and installing piping to literally suck the gas out of your home, redirecting it to the outside through your roof.

Only problem is, many contractors don't follow EPA protocols, or cut corners, rather than doing it properly.

"There's mitigators who will violate so many codes," said Nelson, "That the homeowner feels uncomfortable or it doesn't work at all, and we have to go in and basically tear it out and start all over again."

He claims only about a third of mitigators do the work properly.

Today his crew is working on a home with high levels of radon, after owner Sheri Ouellette heard from a neighbor that lots of houses in her area tested high.

"I wanted someday to finish my basement," said Ouelette. "To be down there especially if I have kids and any pets down there, it is concerning, because it also runs up through the whole house--so it's not just in the basement. "

Back in my basement, Vranka installed both an expensive electronic monitor and a simple charcoal kit available from the Health Department.

We left them there for six days, and then checked the results.

"What you see here is an average of 5.8 Pico curies per liter," said Vranka while looking over the recorded measurements. "The average for you down here, and that is above the action level of four Pico curies per liter, which means that you probably do need to follow up on this."

Anything at or above four Pico curies per liter, is considered high risk for developing lung cancer with long term exposure, and is recommended for mitigation.

"It's not something to panic about," said Vranka, "But it's definitely something to follow up on, especially given that we end up living in our houses for a long period of time. "

And given half the homes in Colorado may be above the danger level, a $7 test kit might be worth the investment.

A footnote: There's also increasing medical evidence that exposure to radon may a factor in triggering Multiple Sclerosis. In fact, there are several studies underway on that aspect of exposure.

Perhaps coincidentally, Colorado has one of the highest MS rates in the country.