Name:	MAJ USA RET -	Reply
Subject:	RADON and GLOBAL WARMING
Date:	4/7/2014 9:52:25 AM (updated 4/7/2014 9:56:05 AM)

According to Allstate: “What’s the key risk of radon? - - - It’s the leading cause of lung cancer deaths among nonsmokers in this country, claiming the lives of about 21,000 Americans a year; and, overall, it’s the second leading cause of lung cancer, the EPA says.” http://blog.allstate.com/radon-granite-countertops/  

I defy anyone to show medical evidence of a single residential radon death in the United States! This is right in there with anthropogenic global warming… it is a hoax (with the EPA being the chief abettor).  

a) If you have a basement or crawl space with absolutely no ventilation, you could place one of those $25 detectors in the deepest corner and may get some sort of elevated level. If you have a door to your basement or crawl space… if your crawl space has vents… if your heater or any component of HVAC are located in your basement… if you have a washer/dryer in your basement… you won’t have any significant concentration of radon.

b) AND if you spend a significant portion of your time in the back corner of your air tight crawl space or basement… you MIGHT get exposed. Do you sleep down there… watch TV… dine down there?

c) Radon is in the chain of decay products from fissionable uranium) But, fissioning radon is an alpha emitter. Alpha particles are HUGE and have a very low energy level! They cannot penetrate onion skin.

d) Radon is an inert gas (Rn is located on the far right column of your periodic table). The inert elements DO NOT enter into any bonding relationship with any other elements. So, if you inhale a radon particle… you lose it when you exhale.

e) All radon is not fissionable (unstable isotope: Rn-220 or Rn-222). You would have to inhale a fissionable isotope of radon… hold your breath… have it get trapped in a fold of lung tissue… have it burp that alpha particle at that precise moment (Rn-220 has a half-life of 55.3 seconds and Rn-222 has a half-life of 3.83 days). The alpha particle would have to strike the nucleus of the RNA of soft tissue, genetic material and not destroy it… but cause it to mutate. The mutation would have to survive. The mutation would have to be able to generate copies of itself. Do I need to continue this chain… have you got it yet?

f) The Alamos Handbook of Radiation Monitoring lists NO critical organs for radon). EPA’s own list of screening levels DOES NOT list radon.

g) The Standard handbook of Environmental Engineering suggests you might want to take some mitigating measures at 200 pCi/L. PLEASE! If any of you can get that kind of concentration in your basement or crawl space… I will buy you a case of whiskey. 

You have to work in an unventilated mine to get any significant exposure to radon.

Name:	MAJ USA RET -	Reply
Subject:	RADON and GLOBAL WARMING
Date:	4/7/2014 9:56:39 AM (updated 4/7/2014 9:56:56 AM)

In my professional life I was a Certified Environmental Specialist (seal number 13844) and a Registered Professional Geologist in Tennessee (seal number 3509) and Alabama (seal number 1242).

Name:	Firefighter -	Reply
Subject:	RADON and GLOBAL WARMING
Date:	4/7/2014 10:59:22 AM

In reading your submittal on Radon Gas I first came upon this item as it related to accumulation in homes. Twenty years ago I lived in the state of New Jersey where a number of areas had high levels of Radon Gas in the homes. Throughout the state no one could sell their homes without having a Radon dector placed in their home and recorded the accumulation for one week. If someone (and there were many) exceeded a critical level they could not sell their home until a ventilation system was added and the home re-evaluated. I remember this as it related to me when I went to sell my home. A Radon dector was placed in my home and when the person left I took the recorder and put it out in the yard. One week later I put the detector back in the house to be picked up. Right or wrong it was not a concern when I sold the house.

Selling the house in New Jersey was a challenge. Every room in the house was checked for EMI levels from the power lines, the water supply was evaluated for contamination, we needed our marriage license to prove we were married, our birth certificates were required, the fire dept checked the smoke detectors, and on and on.

The only message I can give you is that I was glad to get out of there!!!!!!!!!

Name:	MAJ USA RET -	Reply
Subject:	RADON and GLOBAL WARMING
Date:	4/7/2014 12:05:01 PM

I am NOT surprised to read that about any of the blue states.

In 1993, we built a custom townhouse in Springfield, VA… just outside the famous “I-495 Beltway.” One of the building requirements for Fairfax County was that we were required to install a 6 inch PVC vent, up through the house to the roof, to allow radon to escape from under the slab in our basement.

The EPA says that anything about 2 pCi/L is “elevated”… yet environmental engineering best practices says that you should consider mitigation measures at 200 pCi/L. I guarantee that any basement or crawl space near or on bedrock (C Horizon) can be made to produce GTE 2 pCi/L if you put the detector in the lowest, deadest corner of the basement for an extended period of time. However… if you chain together all of the slim possibilities (risk factors) I listed above… and you are still afraid… you deserve to be flimflammed by the EPA and the radon mitigation industry!

When, as a CES, I got calls from frantic homeowners, if there was any reason other than regulatory interference… I advised them to calm down… and not to waste money on my inspection or a radon detector routine.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	RADON and GLOBAL WARMING
Date:	4/7/2014 1:39:19 PM

OK Maj, you had me going there with the title to this thread.  I thought you were going to show me where some yahoo claimed that global warming caused radon or vice versa........which given the fact that every other natural phenomenom is caused by or made worse by global warming......which pretty much hasn't happened for 15-17 years......I had naturally assumed the worst.

As for radon, I do believe it is much ado about almost nothing.  But like a good many other environmental issues you have a much higher standard of care when it comes to unvoluntary risk.  How else can you explain govt agencies that cause my clients to spend millions to protect people from an excess cancer risk of 1 in a million while people are engaging in behavior that increases their risk of cancer by 1 in 3?  The key issue is the perception of voluntary  risk compared to involuntary.  The former is easily dismissed or accepted, the latter causes spasms of anger, fear and loathing.  However in this case, you have a cottage industry that thrives on the radon scare.

Name:	MAJ USA RET -	Reply
Subject:	radon burp
Date:	4/9/2014 7:05:38 AM

Actually, Martini, you have something there. There IS a relationship between radon out-gassing and weather. During times of lower pressure, there is a slight uptick in radon release (remember it is a gas). SO… if the globe warms because of breathing, volcanoes, and cow farts… then the low pressure systems would swing farther south and then we’d have an insignificant increase in an already insignificant inert gas. If you want to understand better… it’s like old farts going up in airplanes… air befouled (ROFLMAO)!