WILLIAMSBURG — On the Environmental Protection Agency ’ s map of radon risks , Virginia ’ s coastal plain is a sunny shade of yellow .
Yellow is the best color to be on the radon map . Yellow is assigned to those areas that in 1993 the agency determined had the lowest potential for high levels of radon , a naturally occurring radioactive gas linked to lung cancer , to be detected in homes .
But yellow can also be deceptive . Earlier this month , researchers at William
& Mary announced the discovery of an apparent new hotspot for residential radon around Williamsburg , a city firmly in the coastal plain .
Using data from roughly 200 homes in the area tested for radon , geology Professor Jim
Kaste and research associate and former Virginia state geologist Rick Berquist found that between 15 and 39 percent of the homes they tested had radon at levels above four picocuries per liter of air , the concentration of radioactivity chosen by EPA as its
“ action limit ” for the gas . Furthermore , the higher levels appear to be connected to a geologic feature known as the
Yorktown Formation.
Berquist , who has been collecting data on radon in the region since 19899 , said that he ’ s known for decades that there was likely “ an issue with radon in homes built on the Yorktown ” but until recently didn ’ t have sufficient dataa to prove it
.
Now , “ I ’ m pretty confident about what we
’ re doing ,” he said . “ We ’ re living in a time where if you see something , say something . But you don ’ t say something unless you know what you ’ re talking about .” Ryan Paris , the radon coordinator for the
Virginia Department of Health ’ s Office of
Radiological Health , said state officials are aware there are radon hotspots around Virginia not represented on the EPA map and that “ almost everybody out there agrees this map needs revision .” “ We do not advocate using that map or any other source of information to try to predict what your radon level is goingg to be in any particula house ,” he said . “ We have had elevated test results in every single one of those supposedly low-risk counties . The only way to know is to test .”