Portland State Magazine Spring 2013

14 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE SPRING 2013 TOWARD THE END of the last ice age—between 15,000 and 18,000 years ago—one of the most cataclysmic events in Pacific Northwest history reshaped the upper Willamette Valley. As a result, it gave certain areas of modern-day Portland a lung cancer risk that is second only to smoking. The culprit is radon. It’s an odorless, colorless radioactive gas emitted by all types of rocks, but especially granite. It becomes harmful when it seeps up through the soil and into residential basements. Every year, 20,000 people in the United States die of radon-caused lung cancer, according to the U.S. Environ- mental Protection Agency. Portland State geology professor Scott Burns has spent the past 20 years mapping the radon levels of locations throughout the Portland metro area. His first study in 1993 took radon data from 1,100 Portland homes, and mapped low, moderate and high levels of risk. The study changed the way government officials, homeowners, builders, and real estate agents looked at radon, and eventually helped to create new building laws to guard against radon exposure. That initial study turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. In January, Burns and his student research team came out with a report from a much broader sampling: 32,000 homes in the Portland area and another 22,000 from around the state. It showed more places in the Portland area with a high risk of radon exposure, and for the first time, pointed out other hot spots in the state with dangerous levels of radon, including Milton-Freewater, Lakeview, Sandy, Silverton, and parts of Baker County. Suddenly Burns was on the front page of Oregon newspa- pers and was being interviewed by radio and TV reporters. Not long after, Salem’s Statesman Journal reported hardware stores in Silverton were having a hard time keeping home radon test kits on the shelves. That’s because Burns wasn’t just talking about the newfound prevalence of radon, but the fact that it’s something homeowners can do something about. Homeowners can perform an inexpensive test in their homes, and if levels are high, they can fix the problem by repairing basement walls and installing ventilation. “It’s the cheapest of all the geological hazards out there,” he says. But how did it get here? MOST OF THE RADON danger in the Portland area and, in fact, much of Portland’s topography, can be traced to the Missoula Floods, which occurred several thousand years ago. During the last ice age, a glacier in Idaho blocked a major river coming out of Montana. Water behind the blockage rose to Odorless, colorless and dangerous, radon gas poses a real risk in Oregon homes. Hazardous to your health WR I T T E N B Y J OHN K I RK LAND Scott Burns and his student research team looked at radon levels in 32,000 Portland homes and another 22,000 around the state.