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COVER
URANIUM
had to nd a solution.
As they researched the health e ects
from long-term exposure to uranium and radon on the Internet, their concern grew exponentially.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a lifetime exposure to elevated levels of radioactive elements in drinking water can increase the risk of cancer and cause kidney damage. Both radon and uranium in water are gener- ally colorless, odorless and tasteless, and radon in the air can cause lung cancer.
In particular, the radioactive ele- ments, which occur naturally, seem to be present in the unique granitic formation anking the communities near Kila.
“The more that we nd out and the more people I meet in the neighbor- hood dealing with this issue, the more it makes sense. But lots of people have no clue,” Lisa said. “It just seems like there should be more information available to the public. It’s been a long, stressful jour- ney, nancially, physically and emotion- ally. We had no idea what was going on for
Jon Cuthbertson, owner of Montana Environmental Laboratory in Kalispell, rst learned about the prominence of what is called “gross alpha” radioactivity in private wells west of town more than a decade ago, when a customer asked to have her water tested for uranium. At rst he was skeptical of the customer’s concerns, but he submitted the sample to humor her.
“Sometimes you get these tin-hat peo- ple, these full-moon folks who are a little paranoid and loony,” Cuthbertson said. “But sure enough, there was radioactiv- ity in her water. A lot of it.”
The woman explained that she was dying of cancer, and hair samples tested at the hospital revealed traces of ura- nium, even though she had never worked near a power plant. She had, however, been drinking her untreated tap water for years, and her well contained unsafe lev- els of “gross alpha” activity – a measure- ment of the radioactive energy released as elements such as uranium break down.
The Environmental Protection Agency de nes gross alpha as a form of radioac- tive contamination, and warns of health risks, including the potential of cancer after long-term exposure.
Since 2010, Cuthbertson has submit- ted 175 drinking water samples from the Kila area that tested above the maximum contaminant level for gross alpha radio- activity, according to his records. He now recommends testing for radiological
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tFederal and state water standards mandate testing for uranium in public water systems. For private well owners and small water systems like the Millers’, however, o cials do not require testing for radioactivity, and are unable to point to any public health campaigns or educational outreach in a ected areas, or provide residents any other help testing or dealing with urani- um-contaminated wells.
he longest time.”
Dave Calvi, with Absolute Water Systems, Inc., shows a treatment system at Lisa Miller’s Kila home. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
elements to any customer living west of Kalispell – his lab is not equipped to test for radioactive material, so he sends the samples to a lab in Casper, Wyoming.
Cuthbertson has submitted samples from private and public water systems spanning Kila, Ashley Lake, Smith Lake, Foys Lake, Browns Meadow, and beyond – “that whole area is hot,” he said. “I really don’t know how far west it goes.”
“One of the samples was 250 times the maximum contaminant level. That’s just astounding,” he continued. “We pretty much tell everyone that’s west of Kalispell to do it. I don’t want to be a scare-monger, and it’s not like I make any money o of it, but I would want to know if there was that much radioactivity in my
t’s not the rst time residential areas west of Kalispell have dealt with issues related to radioactivity in the
water supply.
In 2010, the state Department of Envi-
ronmental Quality required 43 homes in the Lakeshore Heights Homeowners Association west of Kalispell to address concerns over radioactivity in the drink- ing water. The agency proposed several options, including installing reverse osmosis water systems, prompting the Lakeshore Heights Homeowners Associ- ation to launch a pilot program to deter- mine the most cost-e ective means of treatment.
At Lakeshore Heights, samples dating back to 1992 showed non-detectable gross alpha activity, according to Emily Gilles- pie, an environmental engineer with the DEQ in Kalispell. But over the years,
possibly as more water was pumped through the wells, the levels have risen, coming out of the bedrock walls.
Federal law, as mandated under the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act, states that the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for gross alpha activity is 15 pico- curies per liter. Lakeshore Heights was averaging over 30. According to a 2009 Environmental Working Group report, Lakeshore Heights had the highest recorded gross alpha levels of any public water system in the state.
It was the rst public water system in the state to receive a mandate from DEQ to treat for gross alpha radioactivity, and it became a nancial nightmare for the homeowners association.
But then the subdivision found another, cheaper way to bring the system into compliance with the EPA standards – by submitting the samples to a di er- ent lab.
“That was a long process. We consid- ered everything and the costs were just unbelievable,” said Tina Malkuch, a res- ident at Lakeshore Heights, who at the time served as the association’s certi ed water systems operator. “Then we found this other lab that gave us results that are acceptable.”
Lakeshore Heights, as well as ve other water systems exceeding the MCL for gross alpha, had been sending their sam- ples, via Cuthbertson at Montana Envi- ronmental Laboratory, to Energy Labs in Casper, Wyoming, which performs an EPA-approved method labeled 200.8 to test for uranium, charging a cost of $25 per sample.
Laboratory of Hygiene, in Madison, Wis- consin, performs a di erent EPA-ap- proved method labeled SM7500 U.C., charging a cost of $216 per sample.
When Lakeshore Heights and four other subdivisions submitted their sam- ples to the Wisconsin lab, they fell within compliance of the EPA standard, and operators like Malkuch breathed a sigh of relief.
“If you were to put in one huge treat- ment system, which we considered doing, then the wastewater would have to go into a drain eld site and that drain eld site would then become hazardous waste. And when you have to replace that haz- ardous waste every ve to 10 years, the costs were impossibly high,” Malkuch said. “That is why we went out digging to nd some other solutions, and we ended up just taking the samples to a di erent lab. They just use a di erent method that gives you di erent results.”
Those results were presented in a 2010 Consumer Con dence Report, in which Malkuch assured residents that “Lake- shore Heights can now in fact say after a year and a half that we do not have a gross alpha problem.”
Still, some residents have taken their own steps to treat their drinking water.
Tony Dammel, who owns Culligan Water in Kalispell and lives at Lakeshore Heights, estimates he’s installed treat- ment systems in a dozen or more Lake- shore Heights homes, including in his own.
“All I drink is RO (reverse osmosis) treated water because I know what’s not in it,” he said. “I won’t personally drink the untreated water.”
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ater.”
However, the Wisconsin State JANUARY 13, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM