Radium

Students at five north Anne Arundel County schools are being supplied with bottled water because state officials found levels of radium above federal standards in three wells that serve the schools.The Maryland Department of the Environment found the radium -- a radioactive metal that can cause bone cancer -- in wells that serve Chesapeake Senior High School, Chesapeake Bay Middle School and Bodkin, Lake Shore and Millersville elementaries in July. Those tests occurred two months after the county health department found levels of radium that exceeded federal standards in 22 private wells in north county, said department spokesman Quentin Banks.

The dozen or so plotters huddle in a circle of wicker chairs at William DeLawder's Pasadena home, planning their next move. An engineer, a nurse, a lawyer, they are united on this drizzly night by fear and anger about the radium that is seeping into wells across northern Anne Arundel County. They are skeptical of the county's assurances that the risk of getting cancer by drinking radium-tainted water is low, and that water-treatment systems are effective at removing the naturally occurring, radioactive metal.

DURING THE 1940s, '50s and '60s, tens of thousands of Marylanders -- children, mostly -- received a treatment called nasal radium therapy, in which a radium-tipped probe was inserted in the nostrils. At the time the procedure, pioneered by doctors at Johns Hopkins, looked like a successful way to treat hearing loss, tonsillitis and colds. Today, it appears to have been a serious mistake.Though experts disagree on the extent to which the therapy increases the chance of cancer and thyroid problems, there have been enough studies and anecdotal evidence to support legislation to create a state panel to examine the risks, devise a system of alerting the 67,000 Marylanders believed to have had this treatment and recommend remedial action.

The state is suggesting public water as a possible long-term solution for Pasadena residents who have radium in their well water - renewing the debate over whether connecting the peninsula to public water would bring unwanted development. In a letter to a member of Citizens Against Radium Poisoning, Jane T. Nishida, state secretary of the environment, wrote that the Maryland Department of the Environment is committed to working with the county to evaluate the costs and benefits of providing public water to the Pasadena peninsula.

The state is suggesting public water as a possible long-term solution for Pasadena residents who have radium in their well water - renewing the debate over whether connecting the peninsula to public water would bring unwanted development. In a letter to a member of Citizens Against Radium Poisoning, Jane T. Nishida, state secretary of the environment, wrote that the Maryland Department of the Environment is committed to working with the county to evaluate the costs and benefits of providing public water to the Pasadena peninsula.

County Executive John R. Leopold plans to ask the General Assembly to make permanent a little-used financial aid program that helps well owners pay for water-purification systems to get rid of radium contamination. Six families have taken advantage of the pilot program since Leopold, who took office this month after five terms as a delegate, sponsored the 2003 bill creating it. The program, which was set to expire in 2009, uses state and county grants to reduce the cost of a water-purification system for eligible households by up to 25 percent.

RESIDENTS who live in areas where county and state officials have found disturbing levels of radium don't have to feel like they are under siege. They can easily gain control over the radioactive threat. The Anne Arundel County Health Department has mailed letters to 20,000 households in northern Anne Arundel where radium has been found. The mailings advise residents to let officials test their private wells for the contaminant. The tests cost residents $64. Surprisingly, only 5 percent of residents have responded.

A proposal by Anne Arundel County legislators that would earmark state money to help homeowners pay for equipment to remove radium from their well water won support yesterday from Maryland Housing Secretary Raymond A. Skinner. In a brief hearing before the House Appropriations Committee's Health and Human Resources Subcommittee, District 31 Dels. John R. Leopold, a Republican, and Joan Cadden, a Democrat, presented language for the 2002 state budget that would create sliding-scale loans or grants for households.

Thousands of residents in northern Anne Arundel County sip unregulated drinking water, unaware of a cancer threat that potentially lurks in their private wells. Radium, a radioactive element naturally found in rocks and soil, may be out of sight, but state officials have spent the summer trying to make residents aware of the cancer-causing substance that lies in the ground. The state pays for up to 25 percent of the cost for a water-treatment system for wells containing high radium levels.