It turns out that when Uranium decays, it produces a nuclide called Radium. When THAT decays, it produces a colorless, odorless gas called Radon. This slowly emits itself into the air, and can fill your home if someone built it over some Radium deposits.”But my house wasn’t built on top of a bunch of Uranium!” Well THAT is a good thing… The only problem is that even some of those hard, shiny, nifty granite countertops that your mom so desperately wanted to install in her kitchen emit radon. It is in a lot of the rocks in the ground that we stand on every day. Here in the Portland area, there is a ton of it that you can find on a map maintained by the Oregon Health Authority that details areas with lots of Radon.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified radon as the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. Many homes contain radon concentrations that are high enough to give their occupants lifetime exposures that could increase their risk of developing lung cancer. As one inhales, radon decay products in the inhaled air are deposited in the lungs. Radon and its decay products emit alpha and beta particles and gamma photons. The alpha particles are very damaging if emitted from radioactive material within the body. The alpha particles can strike sensitive lung tissue causing damage to the cells in the lungs subsequently increasing the risk of lung cancer. The risk associated with this exposure is thought to increase linearly with increasing radon concentration, so the higher the average radon level is in a house, and the longer the exposure period, the greater the risk to the occupant.

If you detect a significant amount of radon in any test that you do (the EPA considers readings of 4 pCi/L to be the upper limit of “safe”, which means most jurisdictions require remediation for anything above 4 pCi/L when the hose is sold, but they recommend remediation for anything above 2 pCi/L. The average outdoor levels are closer to 0.4 pCi/L), you should have your home remediated.