How do you know if your school has radon?

Do you have school age children, relatives, or friends that work within a school system?  If so, you’ll want to know if there is a lurking threat in the building that is invisible, odorless, and causes lung cancer.

Children are particularly vulnerable when exposed to radon. A student’s exposure to radon, at 4 pCi/L, is equivalent to smoking half a pack of cigarettes per day.  Elementary school-age children exposed to the U.S. EPA’s recommended action level of 4.0 pCi/L for one school year – eight hours per day, 180 days in the year – will receive nearly 10 times as much radiation as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows outside a nuclear power plant.  Children’s young, developing lungs are significantly more vulnerable to damage from radon inhalation than those of adults.  Also, due lung shape and size, children breathe at a higher rate than do adults, resulting in an increased risk of more radon entering their lungs, potentially resulting in cancer-causing DNA changes.

However, don't discount the health of the school staff either.  The educational professionals are also at risk for lung cancer if they are exposed to high levels or radon over an extended period of time, too.  A nationwide survey of radon levels in schools estimated that nearly one in five schools in the US has at least one classroom with short-term radon levels above the action level of 4 pCi/L, the level at which EPA recommends that schools take mitigation actions.

As in homes and other buildings, the only way to know whether a school or a classroom within a school has high radon levels, is to test.  Although an increasing number of states and school districts are encouraging – or mandating, in some locations – we have a long way to go before all of the estimated 100,000 U.S. schools (with about 2.5 million classrooms) are tested for radon.

Protect your children.  Make sure that your school district tests for radon.