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LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A bill designed to protect new homes from radon gas is gaining traction among Nebraska lawmakers, but no major changes are likely until at least next year.
Nebraska has the nation's third-highest prevalence of radon, the cancer-causing gas that seeps into buildings from the surrounding soil. Iowa and North Dakota are the only states where the odorless, colorless gas is more widespread.
Yet an effort to enact new construction requirements to make homes more radon resistant has hit repeated roadblocks in the Legislature over the last three years, forcing its backers to compromise.
The original proposal would have imposed statewide regulations for all new homes. Instead of mandating new rules, the latest version of the bill would create a task force of state health officials, home builders and inspectors, and cancer advocates to come up with recommendations and report back to the Legislature in 2017. The bill is set for first-round debate this week.
Sen. Bob Krist, who first introduced the bill in 2013, said the measure was amended to address homebuilder and city officials' concerns about mandatory statewide construction standards.
Radon levels vary throughout Nebraska. The concentrations are highest in the eastern, central and southern regions, where the most of the population lives, but lower in the north-central Sandhills, where the sandy soil helps the gas escape and disperse in the atmosphere.
Krist said he introduced the bill because his father died of mesothelioma, an aggressive lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Radon is the nation's second-leading cause of lung cancer, behind smoking, and is the most common cause in nonsmokers.
"The health risk is high and mitigation is easy," he said. "''If you're a building a new house, a quality top-of-the-line system costs less than $900 to install. If you have to go back in and mitigate afterward, it's much more expensive and less effective."
Vicki Duey, the president of a coalition of Nebraska public health departments, said the bill should eventually lead to new construction standards that prevent the radioactive gas from entering homes. Duey said roughly one of every two homes in Nebraska has radon levels that exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recommendations. Concentrations tend to be higher in basements and on ground floors.
Exposure to radon accounts for roughly 20,000 lung cancer deaths in the United States each year, according to the EPA.
"There are some things we can't prevent, but this is one thing that we can," she said.
David Holmquist, a lobbyist for the American Cancer Association's Nebraska chapter, said the task force will help the state determine which practices are best to reduce radon concentrations. Construction features to keep radon levels low include gravel beneath a home's foundation, plastic sheeting, ventilation pipes and caulking for cracks.
"It's time for Nebraska to take a serious look at this," Holmquist said.
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The bill is LB28
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