Houses within the northernmost a part of Lehigh County have a tendency to check greater for radon than different areas of the Lehigh Valley, however elevated radon ranges are frequent in lots of Valley properties, information from the Pennsylvania Division of Environmental Safety reveals.

The basements of properties examined within the Germansville space of Lynn Township had the very best common ranges of radon of anyplace within the Lehigh Valley, at 26.5 picocuries per liter. The second-highest common basement radon ranges are within the Coopersburg space of Higher Saucon Township at 21.3 picocuries per liter.

Radon is a colorless, odorless and tasteless fuel. It’s a radioactive component that happens naturally from the decay of uranium. Additionally it is the second-leading explanation for lung most cancers after smoking, beating out even secondhand smoke inhalation. Radon fuel seeps up via soil; outdoor it might escape into the air, however it might enter properties via cracks or porous areas of cement into individuals’s basements.

The EPA’s motion stage for radon, the purpose the place mitigation steps ought to be taken, is 4 picocuries per liter. A curie is a measurement of the speed atoms in radioactive materials decay or disintegrate over time. A picocurie is one trillionth of a curie.

>> Learn extra: Why you need to care about radon, and what you are able to do about it 

The Pennsylvania DEP shares radon testing information for zip codes throughout the state. Whereas this information doesn’t embody each single radon studying ever taken within the state, it contains assessments taken by the DEP over the course of a number of a long time.

Not a single zip code within the Lehigh Valley had basement radon ranges under the EPA motion guideline, with the common ranges starting from 4.3 picocuries per liter in a part of Easton to the excessive common in Lynn Township, Heidelberg, Washington, Lehigh and Moore township properties. Nevertheless, even with areas that had common ranges on the decrease finish, there have been particular person properties that examined far greater. Many zip code areas had all-time excessive radon take a look at ranges that had been within the tons of of picocuries and a few had been within the hundreds.

The very best radon ranges ever recorded in Pennsylvania had been really in a vacant Higher Saucon Township house in 2016, the place 6,176 picocuries per liter had been detected by the DEP.

Radon may journey upward via a home into the primary, second and even third flooring. The very best common first-floor ranges recorded within the Lehigh Valley had been within the Coopersburg space at 18.7 picocuries per liter. However solely a handful of zip code areas have common first-floor ranges under the EPA motion guideline and just one had common ranges under 2 picocuries per liter.

One of many main causes radon ranges can get so excessive within the Lehigh Valley, particularly within the northern half, is that a lot of the soil is shale-heavy. Shale-heavy soils permit radon to cross via way more simply than different soil sorts, particularly dense and fewer permeable ones like clay-heavy soils. The Lehigh Valley and far of Pennsylvania are additionally below a large metamorphic rock formation known as the Studying Prong, which incorporates elevated ranges of uranium.