Radon safety in South Lake Tahoe is like an underdog baseball team that just can’t catch a break.
The most recent bad radon awareness example is Sugar Pine Village affordable housing, which was built without radon protection––but I’ll come to that later.
Let’s start at the beginning of our radon story, which some of you may remember: On October 2, 2007, the Tahoe Daily Tribune ran a front-page story about how members of the parents’ club at Zephyr Cove Elementary School in Nevada threatened to take their children out of school if school officials failed to provide a plan to reduce radon in the school. The school’s problem was eventually mitigated with the help of outside radon experts being brought in after a failed local first attempt. STRIKE ONE!
Then, in June of 2008, just four years after being built, the U.S Forest Service building just off Al Tahoe Boulevard discovered high radon when one of their employees brought a radon tester to work. The architects had designed the building’s plenum (or basement) as part of the air circulation system. But they did not design it with radon in mind, because what accumulates in the plenum would then be circulated throughout the entire building. Forest service officials would not meet with me about the problem; neither did they divulge the exact mitigation methods in my FOIA request. I later learned that they brought in their own Federal radon experts to fix the problem––at great expense––which could have been avoided by a little more diligence in the design stage. STRIKE TWO!
Additionally, in June 2008, the State of California released its Radon Risk Map of the Lake Tahoe Region, which identified nearly the entire South Shore as bright red, indicating a very high radon risk. That map is a clear visual warning, but unfortunately, it had little impact on our City leaders or the community at large. STRIKE THREE!
What about real estate? Wouldn’t you think that buying or selling a house would be a good time to test for radon, just like you test for termites? Well, it’s not required. And forget about relying on your friendly neighborhood real estate agent to encourage either the seller or the buyer to get a radon test. Most real estate agents view radon tests as a “deal killer,” because when the deal is about to close, no one wants to pay extra to fix it if there is a problem. STRIKE FOUR!
But wait, there is the Natural Hazard Disclosure Report, which is required for all real estate transactions in California, and it rates locations for radon. But, the report rates all South Lake Tahoe locations based on the old 1980 EPA National Radon Map by county. Back then, all of El Dorado County was rated as “Moderate Radon,” so all of the South Shore’s bright red “very high radon risk” locations on the more recent maps are whitewashed down to only a “moderate radon risk.” STRIKE FIVE!
What about our community health? Surely, Barton Health would be on the side of radon prevention. After all, radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after cigarette smoking, and the US Surgeon General has listed it as a primary carcinogen. Well, they did print a few EPA guidelines in their newsletter a few years ago, but when it comes to action, they fall short. I served on the Barton Family and Patient Advisory Council for two years with the express purpose of getting Barton Health to support the Tahoe Newborn Radon Program. That program (which I borrowed from the State of Pennsylvania) provides every new mother with a free radon test kit in their basket of goodies when they leave the hospital with their new baby. Barton helped me redesign the brochure, and the State of California Indoor Radon Program donated the free test kits. But before it could be launched, Barton scrapped the program because the obstetricians thought if the tests showed high radon, it would cause their patients “too much stress,” rather than let us help them find a solution to a cancer-causing problem. When I protested publicly, I was asked to leave the Family and Patient Advisory Council. STRIKE SIX!
And if you think the El Dorado County Health Department has your back, think again. Do a search on their web page for radon, and you get no hits. STRIKE SEVEN!
In November 2024, the South Lake Tahoe City Council heard my presentation on adopting Appendix F of the International Residential Codes into our City Building Codes. Once adopted, it would have required Radon Resistant New Construction (RRNC) techniques on all new residential buildings in the City. Over 150 other cities, counties, and states have done this. But they never even brought it up for a vote. STRIKE EIGHT!
What about the average Joe here in South Lake Tahoe? How has he and his family responded to radon? There’s not much interest. Consider that we have about 9,000 households in the City of South Lake Tahoe, according to the 2020 census, and maybe half that number in the El Dorado County portion of the basin, which makes for about 13,500 living units. According to the most recent California Radon Test Data Base by Zip Codes, as of 2016, only 1,793 households have ever tested for radon, so about 13 percent. Thus, radon is not enough of a concern for 87 percent of our residents to even test, even though we are all living in a very high radon risk area where over 40% of homes tested have high radon. STRIKE NINE!
This brings us to our most recent radon problem: Sugar Pine Village.
Two large multi-family buildings are being completed in South Lake Tahoe this year: the dormitories at Lake Tahoe Community College and the Sugar Pine Village Affordable Housing Project. The college dorms were designed with RRNC radon-resistant methods built into the foundation. Sugar Pine Village was not. Why? Well, “it was not required,” the Sugar Pine Village folks would say. The college must have had more forward-thinking designers who went above the minimum, or perhaps school buildings have higher safety requirements? I do not know. The College will test its ground floor rooms, because it is required by RRNC protocols.
What are the chances that Sugar Pine Village has high radon? Well, if you go by the red radon risk maps, it’s very high. And if you go by the California Radon Test database for all zip codes on the South Shore, it’s 40 percent–– which is also high. But the only way to know for sure is to test.
My goal is to get every ground-floor tenant of Sugar Pine Village to test their apartments for radon. The State of California Indoor Radon Program has provided free test kits. If any resident will contact me, I will send them a free radon test kit. Pass the word.
The truth bats last. We can still get on base!
More information on any of these facts is available by date at: radonattahoe.com/present.htm.
-Jeff Miner
Radon at Tahoe
radonattahoe.com
jeffminer3@gmail.com
PO Box 2576
South Lake Tahoe, CA 96158
