No rising above radon
The same modern construction that provides for energy-efficient buildings can actually increase radon risk due to reduced air exchange, Whitehead warns. And while radon levels are most likely highest in the lower levels, the upper floors of tall structures don’t necessarily offer sanctuary. Air flow creates movement—the stack effect—that can make heavy gas rise up stairwells and elevator shafts.
Then there are the building materials. Whitehead tells of a seven-story Atlanta condominium with high radon levels throughout. The cause was finally found to be in the concrete walls that contained uranium-contaminated aggregate. The solution was installing air exchangers in the 300 units, lowering the radon levels below the EPA’s action level.
A man on a mission
For Whitehead, the mission of radon detection and mitigation grew somewhat naturally from previous positions in the chemical and mining industries in North America and Europe, where he established a reputation as a company builder.
Declining attractive offers to relocate to the U.S. or Europe, Whitehead stayed in Western Canada, opting to apply his experience in what seemed an unfilled niche that combined business opportunity with a greater good.
In the past decade, Radon Environmental has made itself heard, influencing Canadian building codes and stressing the need for testing and mitigation not just in the home, but in schools and workplaces. Having completed the first extensive geologic mapping of Canada, the company produced a continental map of North America and now offers radon mapping services to cities and municipalities.
Radon Environmental will participate in Boston’s Greenbuild International Conference and Expo convention this November, and that’ll give Whitehead the chance to stress again how prevalent the gas is in the Northeast. He’s encouraged that more and more U.S. states are opting for stringent radon testing and prevention measures for new and existing construction.
In Canada, he also gets out the word through his role as a founding member and president of the Canadian Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists (CARST) and with the help of such celebrities as Mike Holmes, whose TV show “Holmes Inspection” advises Canadians about renovation issues. Then there’s Whitehead’s role as a director of Cancer Survivors Against Radon (CanSAR), to which he has a very personal connection.
Hits close to home
When his family lived in Ottawa during the 1990s, Whitehead’s wife, Janet, ran an interior design business in their three-floor home. In 2011, long after the Whiteheads moved to British Columbia, Janet—a never-smoker—was diagnosed with lung cancer that forced the partial removal of her left lung and removal of tumors in her right lobes.
Vividly detailing her illness on Radon Environmental’s website, Janet says the radon level in the Ottawa house was 85 picocuries or 20 times the EPA action guideline in the U.S.
“I now worry about my husband and three children who were also exposed to this lethally high level of radiation, and I would encourage everyone to test their homes, schools and workplaces for radon,” she writes. “Lung cancer kills more people in North America than breast, colon and prostate cancer combined. Radon-induced lung cancer is totally preventable.”
Reminded again of the radon risk in Canada’s capital region, the Whiteheads sent the occupants of their former house a radon detector that initially was thought to be faulty since the reading was so high. Subsequent tests by a radon professional validated the high levels, and—at the Whiteheads’ urging—the occupants hired a contractor to mitigate the problem and consulted with their doctor.
To Alan Whitehead, it was one potentially troublesome situation solved, but with many, many more to go.
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