QUOTE:
"With radon, it's long-term exposure, not a day-to-day thing," Long said. "Now that they found it, they are taking the steps to do what remediation is necessary."
STORY:
Radon gas in schools raises little concern
Greenwich Time - Staff Writer
Moderately high levels of radon were found in two offices at Eastern Middle School, three at Cos Cob School and two rooms at the Board of Education's Havemeyer Building, (unidentified) school district officials said Thursday....
...The seven rooms were the only ones out of 1,000 tested in the school district's 18 buildings that yielded higher than acceptable levels of radon in tests performed in recent months, (Unidentified) officials said.
A recently-enacted state statute requires school districts to perform regular radon testing and remediate rooms found to have elevated levels. Several other school districts, such as Norwalk,...
Please See...
... It is the second leading cause of lung cancer, behind smoking.
Mark Gorian, Norwalk Public Schools' facilities and maintenance director, said that after mitigation work was completed in a little more than a dozen rooms throughout the district, the schools were retested. One classroom at Wolfpit continued to have slightly elevated radon levels, and one room next to it that was not originally tested had a reading of 5.1.
Two air suction devices were originally installed in the floor at Wolfpit, and the district installed an additional device that has been working for the last 10 days, Gorian said....
...Out of 1,000 rooms tested at 18 Greenwich school district buildings, nearly all had acceptable radon levels. Only seven had radon levels ranging from 4 to 4.8 picocuries per liter, according to the district's (an unidentified) spokeswoman. Radon in a music teacher's office at Eastern Middle School measured 5.4 picocuries per liter.....
See Also - Get A Free Radon Test Kit For Your Home:
Or you might want to use it to test your child's classroom.....
01/15/08 Town offers free radon testing
Greenwich Time - Greenwich,CT
By Michael Dinan
"There are pockets throughout Greenwich where levels are high," said Caroline Calderone Baisley, director of the town's Department of Health. "This (testing) is very important, because there are other pockets with high levels that we won't know about until they're tested."
Areas in Greenwich that have been tested since the health department began offering radon air tests in 2000 include downtown, Riverside, Cos Cob and Havemeyer. In those areas, nearly half the homes showed "elevated" levels of radon, according to a federal standard, Calderone Baisley said.
"The heating season is the best time to test for radon because your home is closed up, and radon levels tend to build up indoors," she said.
MORE INFORMATION:
Radon (pronounced /ˈreɪdɒn/,)is the chemical element that has the symbol Rnatomic number 86. Radon is a colorless, naturally occurring, radioactivenoble gas that is formed from the decay of radium. It is one of the heaviest substances that are gases under normal conditions and is considered to be a health hazard. The most stable isotope, 222Rn, has a half-life of 3.8 days and is used in radiotherapy. Although due to its radioactivity, it has been less studied by chemists, there are a few known compounds of this unreactive element. and
Radon is a significant contaminant that affects indoor air quality worldwide. Radon gas from natural sources can accumulate in buildings and reportedly causes 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year in the United States alone.[1] Radon is the second most frequent cause of lung cancer, after cigarette smoking, and radon-induced lung cancer is thought to be the 6th leading cause of cancer death overall.
The radon gas which used as a cancer treatment in medicine is obtained from the decay of a radium chloride source. In the past, radium and radon have both been used for X-ray medical radiography, but they have fallen out of use as they are radiotoxic alpha radiation emitters which are expensive and have been replaced with iridium-192 and cobalt-60 since they are far better photon sources.The National Environmental Health Association administers a voluntary National Radon Proficiency Program for radon professionals consisting of individuals and companies wanting to take training courses and examinations to demonstrate their competency.[50] A list of mitigation service providers is available.[51] Indoor radon can be mitigated by sealing basement foundations, water drainage, or by sub-slab de-pressurization. In severe cases, mitigation can use air pipes and fans to exhaust sub-slab air to the outside. Indoor ventilation systems are more effective, but exterior ventilation can be cost-effective in some cases.
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