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Describing radon as possibly the most hazardous and widespread form of radiation and the second leading cause of lung cancer, the Environmental Protection Agency reported to Congress last year that radon “represents one of the most serious threats facing the American public today.”
Catching radon can be as easy as breathing the air in your home. Nationwide an estimated eight million homes are affected. In parts of Virginia, a Department of Health sampling of 735 homes found one house in five (19-22 percent) with radon “at or above the action levels established by the EPA.” The Piedmont and mountainous regions had the ^highest proportion of elevated radon levels” while only one percent of homes in the eastern Tidewater area registered elevated radon levels. Areas not in the Tidewater or mountain regions are classified as the Piedmont.
An odorless, tasteless and radioactive gas, radon is a product of the .natural decay of uranium. While all soils contain small quantities of uranium, Virginia’s Triassic Basins, which follow the trend of the piedmont from south-central to northern part of the state and the Blue Ridge Mountain area, are rich in shale and .granite, formations that often contain uranium. Uranium is also found ih phosphate and pitchblende. The Triassic Basin runs through Rappahannock, Albemarle, Buckingham, Campbell, Charlotte, Chesterfield, Culpeper, Cumberland, Fairfax, Fauquier, Goochland, Halifax, ^Loudoun, Madison, Orange, Pittsylvania, Powhatan and Prince William counties.
Escaping from fissures in rocks and ground water, radon percolates up through the soil into the open air .where it dissipates. When it seeps into homes through cracks in foundations, open sumps, drains or places \yhere pipes enter, the radioactive
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