High River Mayor Craig Snodgrass and his wife, Lindsay, have lived in their High River home for 10 years. They never expected that the air they were breathing contained unacceptable levels of radon gas.
“I’d heard people talking about radon gas in Alberta, but I really didn’t give it a lot of thought until my wife wanted us to test for it,” says Craig. “Now, we’ve become advocates of testing, and I’d like to see other mayors in our province encourage their citizens to test for the gas.”
As a registered nurse, Lindsay believes in doing everything you can to prevent future illness, and with a three-year-old running around the house, testing for the gas seemed like a good idea. “I know radon is present in the air, wherever you go, but until we tested we didn’t realize how much higher the concentration of the gas was inside our home compared to outside,” she says.
Radon is a colourless, odourless gas that is naturally occurring, but can accumulate to unnaturally high and dangerous levels in homes throughout Canada. Long-term exposure to the gas is known to cause lung cancer in some people. University of Calgary research found that almost every day, an Albertan is diagnosed with a radon-related lung cancer.
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Image via University of Calgary.