Replies

Note that this does not appear to be longitudinal study where radon levels were measured at the same location in the same houses over a period of 20 0r 30 years. Rather, the study is apparently based upon increases in mean aggregate radon readings for all houses in the counties at issue over a period of years even though the number of houses and the location of the radon test within each house differ from year to year.

Even without fracking, radon readings are generally higher in houses built on shale formations, which is the same type of rock from which shale oil and gas come from in Pennsylvania. Thus, no one should be shocked that gas, oil, and high levels of radon are all found in the same areas.

So why the sudden “spike”? Could be that people move to where the jobs are and there are lots of jobs along the PA side of the PA/NY border thanks to the oil and gas industries. That means that more houses are being built in areas where there are high concentrations of radon — with or without fracking. In addition, there is more turnover of existing houses in these areas than there has been in decades as older people retire and move out of the area and sell there houses to a younger generation. Nearly every bank requires a radon test these days as a condition of the loan, which was not the case when many of these older houses were built and sold to the long-time owners.

The bottom line is there are more houses and housing turnovers in these areas and as a result there is more radon testing.

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.

Idiotic article, but I see no reason why there cannot be some sort of a connection.

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.