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.
Research Article: Communication Challenges for Complex Policy Issues: An Illustration with Multimedia Radon Mitigation
Communication challenges of environmental management are magnified for uncertain policy options and trade-offs involving complex issues. A novel risk-trading option authorized by Congress for setting standards for radon levels in drinking water illustrates interactions and gaps among scholarly advice, practitioner behavior, and citizen responses, as revealed in utility-customer focus groups. The aim of the focus groups was to identify citizen-preferred options (including any not yet suggested by policy makers) and difficulties in presenting needed background information so that policy preferences are valid and reliable if elicited in the future. This commentary covers such topics as effects of knowledge, risk comparisons and information framing, values clarification, presentation of policy options and evaluation, and their implications for risk communication and policy development.
The Tsadik and His Soul’s Sparks: From Kabbalah to Hasidism
The present study shows the continuity between the Safedian Kabbalistic view of the relations between the sparks of a certain soul, and the Hasidic theory, that was conceived of as innovated by and characteristic of 18th century Hasidism, as to the responsibility of the Tsadik for the sparks that belongs to his soul. In the two literatures, the rescue of a spark of one's soul is related to the beautiful captive woman that is conceived of as an externalization of an inner dimension of the righteous person, immersed in a shell.