LIVERMORE — Administrative Assistant Carrie Castonguay will be conducting an air test at the Town Office/Fire Station after she receives a test kit to determine if the inside air contains radon. An elevated level of radon was detected in the well water.
She did a test this past weekend but needs to do another, she said Thursday.
Maine Municipal Association did a building inspection and required a test of the water to be done, she said.
An analysis of the water test dated Jan. 2 registered 106,153 picocuries of radon per liter of water used, according to information provided to the town by Northeast Laboratory Services of Waterville.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website, picocurie per liter is a unit of radioactivity corresponding to one decay every 27 seconds, or 0.037 decays per second in a liter of air.
Radon is a gas that has no color, odor or taste and comes from the natural radioactive breakdown of uranium in the ground and can be linked to lung cancer, according to the EPA’s website.
“It takes years of exposure to radon before you face the hazard of lung cancer,” Robert “Bob” Stilwell, who is in charge of the radon section in Maine’s Radiation Control Program, said.
Maine has a maximum exposure guideline of 4,000 picocuries of radon in one liter of water from a private well, according to the Division of Environmental Health website. It is a division of the Maine Center For Disease Control and Prevention.
In general, the maximum exposure guideline of 4,000 is based on a family of four using the water year-round, Stilwell said.
The primary hazard of radon in water is of concern mostly because it escapes into indoor air whenever water is used, he said.
If it was a family of four and 106,153 picocuries of radon per liter was found in the water, the family would be counseled not to panic, Stilwell said.
“This is fixable,” he said. An aeration system could be installed, but it would cost about $5,000, he said.
“For every 10,000 pCi/l (picocuries per liter) of radon in water, around 1 picocurie per liter is added to indoor air levels,” the Division of Environmental Health website states.
Using that formula and the amount of radon found in the well water test, 10.61 picocuries per liter of radon would be released into the air.
dperry@sunjournal.com
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