Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Radon, a radioactive gas from decaying uranium, affects nearly 50% of Utah homes.
- Kerri Robbins, diagnosed with nonsmoking lung cancer, believes high radon levels contributed.
- Advocates urge testing and mitigation, highlighting Utah's lack of stringent radon laws.
SALT LAKE CITY — It's a potential health risk advocates say exists in far too many Utah homes.
On Wednesday, those advocates teamed up at the Utah State Capitol with health professionals, mitigation experts and a woman with an especially compelling story to raise awareness about the harmful health effects of radon.
"Radon is a radioactive gas that comes from decaying uranium in the soil," T.J. Mellars, general manager of Utah Radon Services, explained. "The concern with radon is it can come up in people's homes, and it releases particles of radiation into your lungs. And those particles of radiation that are released into your lungs over time have the potential to cause lung cancer."
Brad Callister, a board member of utahradon.org, said the latest data showed high levels of radon are present in as many as half of Utah homes.
"It comes from uranium and, unfortunately, Utah has a lot of uranium," Callister told KSL-TV. "Nationally, about 1 in 15 homes has high radon. In Utah, this data is showing 1 in 2 homes, so almost 50% have high radon."
Callister said radon gas is odorless, colorless and tasteless. During the winter, with less ventilation, he said it tends to stick around houses.
Advocates have called radon a "silent killer," because it is a leading cause of lung cancer and can increase the risk of other cancers.
Kerri Robbins, of Lehi, said she didn't smoke and had lived a generally healthy life when she received some unexpected medical news following a concerning episode at home that included gagging and a lapse in memory.
"They took me to the hospital, the emergency room, and ran some tests and found I had a brain tumor," Robbins said. "Over the course of that summer, I had quite a few different tests done. And at the end of August, I was diagnosed with Stage 4, nonsmoking lung cancer. You could have knocked me over with a feather."
Robbins said she believed high radon levels probably contributed.
"The levels in our home were like I was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day," Robbins said. "We had the home mitigated immediately."
She now regularly helps to raise awareness about the radon issue as she continues to battle cancer.
"I had a wonderful Christmas," Robbins said, as she grew emotional. "It was so wonderful that I was scared that Heavenly Father was making it really special, that I could have one last one before I was gone."
Callister said laws are more stringent in other states when it comes to testing and disclosure.
"The only law that I know of is that if you test your home, and it tests high, when you go to sell it, you have to disclose that," Callister said. "Other than that, there's no requirement for testing."
He said he didn't necessarily expect laws to change in Utah, given so many lawmakers have backgrounds in construction, real estate and development.
"Our sister state, Colorado, requires testing at the time of sale," Callister explained. "They've also built in laws, where if you're even a renter and you find you've got high radon, you can actually break your lease if the landlord won't mitigate. In Utah, we just don't have those laws in place."
Mellars said mitigating radon comes with a cost, but the cost for an average-sized home tends to range from $1,800 to $2,000.
Testing, however, is free through utahradon.org, and it's something both Callister and Robbins said everyone should do.
"There's no safe radon — it's all radioactive," Robbins said. "It's just crazy."
