[Janet McCabe] I'm 
Janet McCabe and I'm 
Deputy Assistant Administrator 
for the Office of Air and 
Radiation at EPA and I want to 
tell you about a recent 
experience I had in my own 
home with radon. 
I've been working in air 
pollution for years 
and have long been talking to 
people about the importance 
of testing their homes for 
radon and then putting in 
a mitigation system 
if the levels are high. 
But I recently experienced 
this myself. 
You may know that radon takes 
about 20,000 lives in this 
country every year.
It's the leading cause of lung 
cancer for nonsmokers, 
second leading cause of cancer 
for smokers, and if you smoke 
and are exposed to radon, your 
chances of getting lung cancer  
go up even more.
It's a very, very serious 
health issue, but it's one 
that we can address 
very easily. 
I live in Indianapolis in a 
house that I bought about 
15 years ago, and when we moved 
in, I knew about this stuff so  
I got myself a radon canister 
-- like this -- and set it down 
in the basement to test. 
And I got the result back -- 
it's very easy to do this.
The directions are right on 
the envelope and there's even 
postage on the envelope to 
send the canister back 
in to the lab.   
And when it came back, 
the level was below 
four picocuries, which is 
the level that we're told 
to be concerned about.   
So that was great.
We went on and lived 
in our house. 
And 15 years later when we went 
to sell the house, our buyers 
asked us to test for radon. 
And I thought, "Well, gee, you 
know, we had a test and it was 
low, but we'll do it again." 
And this time it came back 
higher than four picocuries.
So that was my first lesson, 
which is that you need to do 
this more than once. 
Things can change in your home, 
renovation can affect the radon 
level, selling the house can 
affect the radon level, so keep 
that in mind and 
think about doing 
a radon test periodically.   
We were concerned about 
radon in all living areas 
in the home, so we want to 
know what those levels are.
So after we got the level back, 
the buyers said, "Well, we'd 
"like you to put in a mitigation 
system and take care of this 
before we move in." 
That's getting to be pretty 
common in real estate 
transactions; it's a really 
good time to get this done.
And so this was my chance 
to experience what I'd been 
preaching to people 
all these years.
So I found a certified 
mitigator.
You want to be sure to use 
a certified mitigator.
That was easy to do 
in Indianapolis.
It doesn't take 
very long at all.
And I had been telling people 
all these years that it costs 
about $800 to put in a 
mitigation system, and that's 
exactly what it cost. 
So it was nice to know 
that it was doable 
at a fairly reasonable cost.   
As I said, it didn't take long 
at all, and the mitigator put 
down another test.
And when we got that result 
back, the level was immediately 
down significantly below four. 
It was 1.7, and so it was 
great to have that immediate, 
reliable, concrete confirmation 
that we'd actually taken care 
of this problem.
So we now have made that home 
safe for radon and hopefully 
the buyers will know 
that they should retest 
in a couple of years.    
When we went to buy a house, 
we had the same experience, 
only in reverse. 
We asked the sellers to 
test for radon, the level 
came back high.  
We asked them to put 
in a mitigation system 
and they have.  
So we have two homes that 
are now safe for radon. 
There could be radon anywhere 
throughout the United States 
and so it's really important 
to test your home.
There's lots of information 
on the EPA website at 
www.epa.gov/radon if 
you want to get more 
information about it.  
Mitigation saves lives, so 
please take that step and do 
that for your home.