What Is Radium?

The EPA says radium is a naturally occurring radioactive metal formed by the decay of uranium and thorium in the environment. It says the concentration of radium in drinking water is generally low but some regions have higher concentrations because of local geology, and that the amount allowed in drinking water from community water systems is regulated while private wells are not. Under the EPA Radionuclides Rule, the current standard for combined radium-226 and radium-228 is 5 pCi/L.

A USGS study of principal aquifers found that about 3 percent of sampled wells had combined radium concentrations above that limit, that elevated concentrations were more common in groundwater in the eastern and central United States, and that more than 20 percent of sampled wells in the Mid-Continent and Ozark Plateau Cambro-Ordovician and Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain aquifer systems had combined radium at or above it.

EPA RadTown, in its page on radioactivity in antiques, explains that radium acts similar to calcium in the body, so the radium that workers ingested was deposited into their bones, and that many of these workers developed bone cancer, usually in their jaws. ATSDR says radium has been shown to cause effects on the blood (anemia) and eyes (cataracts), and to affect the teeth, causing an increase in broken teeth and cavities.