Costs And Benefits Of Mitigating Radon In Drinking Water
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering regulating radon, a naturally occurring soil gas dissolved in drinking water, because it poses a lung cancer risk. Benefits and costs of compliance are estimated for 29 water systems with radon above the proposed maximum contaminant level. The estimated cancer risk is three times higher than assumed by EPA, making it likely that a national regulatory standard of 300 picocuries per liter of water would pass a cost-benefit test. Site specific estimates of compliance costs are also substantially greater than EPA estimates. Nevertheless, the estimated cost per avoided death is only about $1 million.
Estimating the Cost of Compliance With the Drinking Water Standard for Radon
Compliance with recently proposed maximum contaminant levels for radon is likely to involve a significant expenditure for the US public water supply industry. More than 30,000 utilities are expected to find that their groundwater supplies exceed the proposed limit of 300 pCi/L. The authors of this article have estimated that the costs of installing and operating radon removal technologies across the United States will amount to $2.5 billion/year, with more than two thirds of those costs being borne by the veiy small water systems that serve 500 or fewer people.
Occurrence of Radon, Radium, and Uranium in Groundwater
Resultats de l'etude de surveillance sur la concentration de radioisotopes dans les eaux souterraines des Etats Unis afin d'obtenir des informations sur l'apparition de ces contaminants dans les eaux potables alimentees par ces sources d'eaux souterraines