Word: radon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...hearings that will ultimately lead to the reauthorization, and possible strengthening, of the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act. But the debate will be long and difficult. Environmental groups such as the N.R.D.C. want stricter enforcement of the existing rules, along with new or tougher standards on contaminants like radioactive radon gas and arsenic. Lined up on the other side are state and local governments and water utilities, which insist they don't have enough money to comply with the law as it is, let alone additional rules. The regulations should be relaxed, they say, not strengthened...
RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION: There are no rules about how much is safe, but the N.R.D.C. cites EPA figures showing that about 50 million Americans drink radon-tainted water. The tasteless, odorless gas, which seeps into water naturally from underground rocks in many areas, is a proven cause of both lung and rectal cancer...
...while admitting that some pollutants are indeed present and dangerous, officials protest that there are limits to what they can do. Radon may cause 200 fatal lung and rectal cancers a year. Yet the Association of California Water Agencies estimates that to eliminate it completely from water in that state alone would cost $3.7 billion. Is that a reasonable investment for preventing perhaps a score of deaths? Is $711 million per case of cancer too much to pay for the elimination of pentachlorophenol, a fungicide used in the lumber industry, or $80 billion per case too much...
...sampling at the Tower, an expert biostatician has calculated that the relative risk associated with working in the Tower for 20 years is equivalent to smoking one pack of cigarettes in an entire lifetime (lung cancer only), riding a motorcycle for 11 miles, spending time indoors over five months (radon exposure), or going on a two-week vacation in the Rocky Mountains (ultraviolet radiation...
There was a similar pattern of uncertainty in judgments about Alar, radon and even some forms of PCBs and asbestos. Citing government studies, environmentalists sounded the alarm about toxicity and cancer. The public fretted. Officials issued warnings and regulations. But then skeptical scientists re-evaluated the threat and began to argue that the risks had been exaggerated. After this series of debates, people are wondering if they have been unduly frightened by overzealous, if well-meaning, regulators...