Reply to Dangerous levels of Radon found in 28 MCPS schools.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I talked to the director of building services last week after this report showed up (before it hit the news) and got the specific report for our school Fallsmead ES.  Half of the classrooms were 4.0 or above. The test was performed in 2012 people!  THis is what the news story missed!  Done in 2012 and they did NOTHING!  Their protocol per the director was to retest as he saw no issues with levels between 4-6 even though the EPA recommends remediation for levels over 4 and to consider remediation for levels 2-4.  He was looking for records of retesting at Fallsmead ES and found none.  I asked him how the protocol was formulated outside of EPA recommendations, why retesting and/or remediation was never done,  to which I got no answers.  Also, why was no public notification done as I would have liked to choose to keep my son out of school.  I have the classroom by classroom report ofr our school and my son spent his first grade in the room with the highest level in the school.  We are not happy with this and someone should lose their job as it was either covered up purposefully or neglected to to incompetence.  Not sure which is worse!.  Parents pressured them into retesting TODAY.
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If 1,000 people who never smoked were exposed to 8 pCi/L of radon [b]over a lifetime[/b], about 15 people could get lung cancer.

http://www2.epa.gov/radon/health-risk-radon

You'd keep your son out of school for that?

(At a lifetime exposure of 4 pCi/L of radon for non-smokers, about 7 out of 1,000 people could get lung cancer.)[/quote]

a 1.5% increase in cancer rate is huge.  Especially for something that is COMPLETELY avoidable.  Remediating for radon is not that hard.  It's a freaking pipe and a fan.
PP above, what's the contact info for the building services person you contacted?[/quote]

The increase in risk is not 1.5 percent unless your child will be spending the rest of his/her lifetime in that particular classroom.  People need to do better risk assessment.  I can guarantee your kid does about 100 things each and every day that put them at greater risk.[/quote]

Actually, you're failing to recognize the different impacts on children because of rapid cell development. I'm well versed in risk assessment. While there are riskier things we do (ride in cars, certainly) that does not excuse being subjected to an increased risk above the federal limits. [/quote]

You keep spouting off inaccurate statistic after inaccurate statistic.  Well versed in being an alarmist I would agree with.[/quote]

You're wrong. I've misstated no statistic.   Rapid cell development is absolutely an issue with small children.  Because of it, environmental hazards affect them differently than adults.  Nothing about that is controversial, in both the fields of epidemiology and toxicology.  And there is nothing fringe or "hysterical" about considering radon to be a health hazard.  It has been long recognized as such by EPA.  Why are you so determined to defend the safety of schools being above the federal limits?  That's bizarre [/quote]

Your 1.5 percent increased risk statement was incorrect as was the 1 in 1000 number.   There is more than one poster saying the risk is negligible.  It's called accurate risk assessment. [/quote]

That's silly.  You're responding to more than one person, and I'm the one who mentioned differential effects on children, not the other stats.  But the risk is obviously not negligible, or EPA wouldn't have set the limit lower than that level.  You are clearly not an expert in this area.  The people who set the limits are.  And further, those limits don't represent a zero- risk level.  They represent what EPA seems to be an acceptable risk level.  There are many risks that we as a community can do nothing about (I can't lower car exhaust emissions except from my own car).  But radon remediation in a school is not hard and not very expensive.  There's absolutely no reason not to do it, particularly where radon is exceeding the federal limits.  [/quote]

The risk at 4.0 from a classroom is pretty much zero.  Look at the actual statistics and how long they presuppose one is exposed to the room.[/quote]

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