time, according to the report.
Suess-Whisenant said she was told by a housing official that remediation is not expected until fall at the earliest. The housing department told the family that their radon level fell within the “higher moderate end.”
“So we’re not in the high classification, which makes me assume other houses are waiting for mitigation systems before us,” she said.
In the meantime, Suess-Whisenant says she’s been told by housing officials to open her windows. This can lower radon levels temporarily, but they often return to their baseline levels within 12 hours of closing the windows, according to the EPA website.
Another family spent $1,500 to move out of an on-base home with elevated readings after living there for more than five years.
The family, which asked not to be identified for security reasons, has a family history of radon-related cancer and a 4-year-old daughter with a kidney illness.
They were told their home wasn’t scheduled for mitigation for about two more years.
“That would have been a total of eight years of high radon exposure,” the spouse said. “And they still said there’s really nothing we can do.”
A housing office manager said they could file for a medical waiver to move. They did so in October. The paperwork stalled for three months until the husband’s commander threatened a legal complaint, the spouse said. Two days later, the waiver was approved.
Their new home was last tested at 2.6 pCi/L, a rate at which the EPA recommends that residents consider mitigation but does not call for immediate action.
Little funding to fix it
The Air Force says it now has ample funding to install radon mitigation systems, but it hasn’t always been that way on Okinawa.
White and others wrote letters to base officials and congressional representatives in California in 2011.
Soon afterward, Kadena Air Base held public forums to address the elevated levels of radon found in dozens of homes on the island.
White was alarmed to find out that the elevated radon levels in his home were low compared with others.
“We have 40 other units waiting for mitigation construction with higher radon levels than your home,” Kadena officials told White in a 2011 email obtained by Stars and Stripes. “Since we received zero funds last year and (because of) the cut in (the) Military Family Housing budget this year, it is unlikely we will be able to obtain funds in a timely manner to start construction.”
Given the lack of funding, White said he moved to a different on-base home.
Kadena began receiving funding to install radon mitigation systems at hundreds of on-base homes in 2012.
The cost of radon mitigation at Kadena averages $4,500 per home — well more than the $1,200 typical cost cited in a Colorado State University fact sheet — because of asbestos testing before drilling, transport of equipment from the United States and the higher Japanese labor rate, Pinnau said.
Kadena officials say they will test on-base homes in Okinawa by request. In one case, a home registered a reading of 110 pCi/L and the family was moved within a week, Pinnau said.
In cases where the radon reading is only slightly above the EPA action level, the family isn’t generally offered new on-base quarters.
Multiple Okinawa residents said the longer they wait for mitigation, the more their concern grows.
“Our hands are tied, and it’s frustrating,” Suess-Whisenant said. If the family lived in a rental house in the U.S., “we’d find a way. If it was our own home, we’d find a contractor. My hands wouldn’t be this tied, as they are here. We don’t have the options.”
Twitter: @eslavin_stripes
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... "Families Struggle" continued from pg 24