Unfortunate no matter how you read it.
Posted on 04/09/2015 6:21:05 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
Levels of radon, an invisible, odorless radioactive gas, have been rising measurably in Pennsylvania since the controversial practice of fracking started there, researchers reported Thursday.
The study cannot directly link fracking with the raised radon levels. But whatever is going on, residents need to be aware of the rising levels of the gas and take action to get it out of their homes, the researchers say.
Radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S., killing an estimated 21,000 people a year. It occurs naturally in many types of rocks, and many people who have bought or sold a home will be familiar with the radon test on the basement or ground floor.
Pennsylvania has notoriously high levels of radon, and Joan Casey of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and colleagues set out to assess all the different sources of radon on Pennsylvania homes over time.
They got state data from every Pennsylvania county, looking at radon readings between 1987 and 2013. This covered nearly 2 million tests done in 800,000 buildings.
"We evaluated associations of radon concentrations with geology, water source, building characteristics, season, weather, community socioeconomic status, community type and unconventional natural gas development measures based on drilled and producing wells."
"The geologic rock layer on which the building sat was strongly associated with radon concentration," they added. That's been known — certain types of rock are more likely to contain the radioactive elements that break down into radon gas.
But they also noticed a trend over time. Depending on where in the homes the radon was measured, radon levels started inching up in either 2004 or 2006.
And the trend was linked with just how much unconventional drilling was going on. This includes horizontal mines and hydraulic fracturing or fracking.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
This might be more to do with radon racketeering than actual radon.
More and more real estate transfers involve radon testing as part of the inspection.
It’ll usually cost you about a grand to remedy a bad radon reading.
It could be that initial readings are falsified in order to dupe consumers into radon remediation. It could be these numbers that the researchers are using.
I personally don’t care about radon. I bought a house in early 2000s w/o asking for the radon test requirement. I didn’t plan to live there forever, so in the hopes of mitigating a potential resale problem, I ordered my own test kit, a couple years after I got the place. It tested normal.
When I did eventually resell it years later, the buyers wanted the test and it failed. I went ahead w/remediation but always suspected that there’s a bit of a racket going on here.
Being a Realtor in central ohio for years, I am aware of Radon gas, because 99% of all homes tested had unacceptable levels of radon. They all had to be mitigated and it was an automatic $750.00. At the time there wasn’t any evidence that this caused lung cancer, now I see it is the second highest cause, so I suspect the price to mitigate has doubled.
Would it have anything to do with increased real estate sales? They were boom times. Radon testing is usually done when a house is sold.
It’s the ROCKS, stupid!!
Exactamundo. In assessing the area for the building of a nuclear plant, many of the stone houses in the area emitted radiation over time that was equivalent to a dental X-Ray!
Of course, our data also showed that women, particularly single moms, children, and minority groups suffered most and that massive federal intervention was needed. Laws against background radiation must be passed.
Well...all those chilrun who have died by this poisonous...oh wait...
I blame this on global warming.
We have a similar problem here in Germany. Both paper and plastic bags were frowned upon. So they went to reusable cloth bags. Now? They’ve discovered bacteria attaching themselves to the cloth bags and if you don’t wash them every month or two...you stand to get an bad infection if you have any cuts and rub against the cloth grocery bags.
RADON is a crock of BS. There has never been ONE SINGLE documented case of any cancer directly related to RADON EVER. Radon gas was ginned up by the EPA and the original studies were from miners who were underground for 8 hours per day breathing in mines where there was some radon. These fine gents also smoked a couple packs of lucky strikes or marlboros each day. It is all made up. About as real as global warming.
I am a Realtor in Michigan.
Yes. Bought a home in PA in 2003. A radon test was part of the home inspection performed prior to closing. There were elevated levels of radon which were “normal” for PA, but not considered dangerous. The area is well east of the Marcellus fracking zones, so the elevated levels were natural and could not attributed to fracking. The media and academia are part of a well-coordinated leftist campaign to torpedo our energy boom.
Follow the money, who is paying these people off, Cui Bono?
Unfortunate no matter how you read it.
Pretty convincing maps, that is, to rational, thinking people.
So such evidence will do nothing to sway the Luddites opposed to fracking.
+1
The homes are built on Indian burial grounds..... beware!
I really liked this part.
The gas and the water both can then carry radon with them.
Unless they're pumping the gas or the water into somebody's basement two miles away, it's difficult to see how there could be a connection.
But it's also possible that the radon is coming into homes through the air.
The increase in granite counter tops is interesting, since a source inside the house is more likely to contribute to radon presence than a source outside. The researcher's contention that the increase in radon readings inside homes miles from any possible source is due to air carried radon is really farfetched.
Particularly when they simultaneously note that homes are sealed more tightly. Apparently they haven't considered that a tightly sealed house isn't likely to leak much air in either.
Tightly sealed houses can of course increase the likelihood of locally generated contaminants accumulating in a house, but that doesn't support the author's political objectives.
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