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Center for Indoor Environments – Radon Program
Radiation and Indoor Environments Laboratory
The mission of the radon laboratory is to provide technical and quality assurance support to the radon community. The radon laboratory provides support to federal, state, and local government radon projects and programs by providing quality assurance related exposures utilizing our environmental radon chamber. The radon laboratory provide reference laboraotry services to the industry, as, well, by7 supporting private radon proficiency program efforts in working with private radon calibration laboratories and in new device evaluations. The radon laboratory also provides radon measurements services to qualified environmental justice and tribal communities for free.
Quality Assurance Support to Federal, State, and Local Governments
The EPA Radon Laboratory assists the states and regions in further improving the quality of radon services provided to the public. This is primarily accomplished through providing device exposure and technical guidance services to the states and regions requesting support. Exposures are performed in the EPA’s Environmental Radon Chamber following mutually agreed upon environmental conditions, exposure conditions, and equipment handling protocols.
Past examples of quality assurance support include: exposure of spiked samples for state laboratories and health departments, environmental radon chamber support for pilot blind testing studies, calibration of scintillations cells and calibration checks of continuous radon monitors. Federal, state, and local governments are welcome to contact the radon laboratory and discuss their requirements to determine if the radon laboratory can assist them.
Support to Private Radon Programs
The radon laboratory provides technical support to private radon proficiency programs. Currently, the proficiency programs that are supports are the National Environmental Health Association National Radon Proficiency Program (NEHA-NRPP) and the National Radon Safety Board (NRSB). The radon laboratory hosts radon gas and radon decay product intercomparisons with private radon calibration laboratories participating in either of these proficiency programs. The radon laboratory also provides verfication exposures for new device evaluations being done by the proficiency programs.
Commercial radon laboratory intercomparisons are performed annually for both radon gas and grab radon decay products. The grab radon decay product are performed on-site at the EPA’s R&IE National Laboratory in Las Vegas, Nevada. Radon gas intercomparisons can be done off-site so long as they are done using evacuated lucas cells. All calculations and decisions of a successful laboratory intercomparisons are done the responsibility of the individual privatized radon programs. The EPA Radon Laboratory provides the privatized radon programs with the equipment, time, and staff, for these intercomparisons as well as full data sets for evaluation purposes. Private radon calibration laboratories who want to have intercomparisons with the radon laboratory will need to be involved in a radon proficiency program and that a request for intercomparison will need to come from a proficiency program.
Device verification exposures are done in support of new device evaluations done by the proficiency programs. Exposures conditions and device handling is agreed upon with the proficiency program prior to direct communication with the evaluated company. All data acquired by the radon laboratory, including information from the verified devices and from laboratory analytical data are forwarded to the proficiency program for their data reduction and analysis. For more on Device Verifications and a list of frequently asked questions click here >
Radon measurements for Environmental Justice and Tribal Communities
The R&IE radon laboratory provides charcoal canisters and analytical to qualified communities. The goal of this support is to provide radon measurements to communities who would otherwise not be able to obtain radon measurements through other means. The R&IE staff work closely with regional EPA staff in communicating and organizing our charcoal canister support to these communities.
The radon laboratory utilizes the charcoal canister system for the delivery of radon measurements to these communities. A central community contact is used to deliver test kits to each community and that central contact is charged with distribution and tracking of where the test kits are distributed to. The R&IE staff will report radon measurements to the central contact to allow for the distribution of analytical results to the community. Test kits come with exposure instructions and postage to allow for the exposure and subsequent delivery of test kits to the laboratory for analysis.
