The discovery in a Center Valley home last fall of the highest radon reading ever in Pennsylvania has its roots in a mystery that started in Berks County almost 30 years ago.
For Brian Redmond, professor of geology and chemistry in Wilkes University's Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, the story that brought radon from obscurity to well-known household hazard is one worth recalling.
"Pennsylvania's the reason this all exists," Redmond recently said.
Radon is a colorless, odorless, radioactive gas that occurs naturally through the breakdown of uranium in soil and rocks, entering structures through cracks in the foundation or other openings.
About one in 15 homes in the U.S. has elevated radon levels, and radon is responsible for approximately 21,000 lung cancer deaths a year, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
It was a strange coincidence in a new eastern Pennsylvania nuclear plant 30 years ago that first brought the threat of radon to light.
Redmond was involved in radon research in the 1980s, when awareness of the problem first surfaced.
He said the story started Dec. 14, 1984, at the then new Limerick nuclear power plant in Montgomery County.
One of the employees, Stanley J. Watras, set off the radiation monitoring devices.
"He went in and the thing went crazy," Redmond said.
What was odd was that at the time, there was no radioactive material at the site that could have triggered the detectors.
However, the devices were accurate, Redmond said.
Watras was covered with radioactive material — but it wasn't from the plant.
As it turned out, the Watras family's new house in Colebrookdale Township, Berks County, had massive amounts of radon in it.
News on the discovery broke about a month later and the story quickly spread internationally.
In weeks to follow, the state Department of Environmental Protection — then known as the Department of Environmental Resources — worked to track down the source of the radon.
That's where Redmond came in: "I'm a geology professor, so when all of this hit, they wondered where the radon was coming from," he said.
Redmond, a Detroit native, holds degrees from Michigan State and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In addition to his tenure at Wilkes University, where he has taught in different areas including geology, geography, environmental science and astronomy since 1976, he volunteered for several years with the Peace Corps and also has done research and consulting, including work with radon.
Along with a physics professor, Roger Maxwell, Redmond tried to correlate the high radon levels in Berks County with a physical cause.
As it turned out, the Watras house was on the Reading Prong, a belt of uranium-rich rock stretching from the Reading area to northern New Jersey, passing through the Lehigh Valley.
Although found in trace amounts in rock and soil almost everywhere, the radioactive element is particularly associated with certain kinds of rock, including granite and black shale, Redmond said. The Marcellus Shale, the source of massive amounts of natural gas in Pennsylvania, is also high in uranium, he said.
Uranium decays into radium, which in turn decays into radon, a colorless, odorless chemical element. Radon is a gas, and it decays down fairly quickly, but it remains floating in the air for some time, Redmond said. Radioactive particulates — called "radon daughters" because they continue to decay and emit radiation — will settle on surfaces, as they did throughout the Watras house, he said.
The Watras case made state and federal environmental agencies realize that radon in peoples' houses could be a problem, Redmond said.
Within months, as scarce radon kits became available, the state began to test in the Lehigh Valley, turning up positive results.
Although there are no short-term risks associated with radon, long-term exposure can lead to lung cancer, and it is second only to smoking as the cause of the disease, according to the National Institute of Health.
The discovery of residential radon and its risks made headlines around the world, and spurred U.S. government agencies to take action. The EPA had to come up with an acceptable level for indoor radon, and settled on 4 picocuries per liter. A picocurie is a measurement of radioactivity related to the rate of decay.
The Watras house tested at an astounding 2,700 picocuries per liter — almost 700 times the recommended level.
Today, residential radon testing is "as common as testing for termites," as Redmond put it, but in the 1980s it was a new territory.
Redmond was a certified radon tester and mitigator in those early days, but, he said, "As it became routine, I pretty much backed out of it."
Watras would also get into the field, becoming a certified radon mitigator, per newspaper accounts. Efforts to reach him for this story were unsuccessful.
Redmond thinks the risks of radon are "a little bit inflated." The level of 4 picocuries per liter is based on a yearlong testing of radon in a house under normal conditions, he said. Short-term test results can be 4 to 6 times higher than the results of annual tests, he said.
Nonetheless, Redmond does advocate having homes tested — just in case it turns out there are high levels of radon.
"Until you test, you don't know," he said.
Last fall, the highest radon level ever recorded in Pennsylvania — 3,715 picocuries per liter — was discovered in a house in Upper Saucon Township. Officials said the homeowner decided to do the test.
The detection in the home, and high levels in several others, led the state to issue a call to homeowners in the Center Valley area to have their homes tested.
The high level of radon discovered in Center Valley even took remediation professionals by surprise.
"I was kind of shocked to see radon levels were over 1,000," said Bill Brodhead, whose company, WPB Enterprises, has been installing radon mitigation systems in homes since the 1980s.