Radium Contamination Found in Well Water

A N N A P O L I S, Md., July 20 -- Radium contamination has been found inwell water used by hundreds of homeowners who live just north ofAnnapolis along the Severn and Magothy rivers.

Of the 1,300 wells tested by Anne Arundel County workers, 63percent had elevated levels of the cancer-causing substance,according to a Washington Post review of county records. Asubstantial number of wells showed radium levels consideredalarmingly high by experts.

Radium dissolves in water and is more than a million times moreradioactive than uranium. It was discovered in the county’s waterfour years ago, when scientists found it while searching for thecause of the county’s high cancer rates.

Traces of radium also have been found in private wells in PrinceGeorge’s, Harford and Baltimore counties.

Unsafe Levels?

But The Post reports that some wells in Crownsville, Pasadenaand Millersville yielded radium levels approaching 593 picocuriesper liter. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers 15picocuries per liter the maximum safe level. Prolonged exposure to radium can cause bone cancer, butofficials said contamination in Anne Arundel does not pose a publichealth threat. They say people would have to drink two liters ofradium-contaminated water each day for decades to increase theirrisk of developing the disease.

Home water filtration systems that use the ion exchange orreverse osmosis methods can reduce contamination.