Published in the Home News Tribune
By KIRK MOORE
STAFF WRITER
Experts weigh possible link to Toms River
Radium, a carcinogen that pollutes drinking-water wells from Ocean County south to Delaware Bay, is especially elevated in farming areas, where widespread use of fertilizers and lime may help the naturally occuring radiation move into water supplies, federal geologists say.
A fact sheet compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey sums up some eight years of well tests and surveys of radium levels in the Kirkwood and Cohansey aquifers, including last year's tests of 54 Ocean County wells as part of the ongoing investigation into childhood cancers in the Toms River area.
Of 170 wells tracked by the USGS, one of three had concentrations of isotopes radium-226 and radium-228 that exceeded the federal drinking-water standard of 5 picocuries per liter (about a quart).
Radium in drinking water increases the risk of cancers, primarly bone and sinus cancers. When it's ingested, radium follows the same path as calcium, concentrating in bone tissue, the USGS noted.
Radium has not been linked to leukemia and neuroblastoma in children -- the types of childhood cancers that have occurred in Dover Township at higher-than-normal rates.
"We're still pretty far away from linking the cancer to the water," said Anthony S. Navoy, assistant district chief for the USGS state office in Ewing, which is assisting Toms River cancer investigators with ground water studies.
Most of the tainted wells cited by the USGS are clustered in the southwest counties of Camden, Gloucester, Salem and Cumberland.
But Navoy said geologists have clues showing that farm fertilizer plays a role in the problem too.
"We see a chemical signature relative to old agricultural land" where fertilizer has been used for years, along with lime to counteract the natural acidity of sandy soils, Navoy said.
Geologists think the same principle of ion exchange that lets ordinary water softeners remove radium from water is at work under old farm fields. In acidic ground water, ions from fertilizer may help "mobilize" radium ions so they can be drawn into wells, Navoy said.
The state Department of Environmental Protection first warned of radium contamination in January 1989, affecting parts of nine southern New Jersey counties. Last year DEP officials again urged private well owners who draw water from the Cohansey formation to have their water tested for radium.
Unlike chemical contamination, radium is easily removed by household-water-softening equipment that substitutes sodium for mineral ions in so-called "hard" water, health and environmental workers say.
In Ocean County, the health department estimated 90 percent of people using private wells used ion-exchange water softeners even before last year's warnings.
When tracking radium levels, researchers use "raw water" taken directly from wellheads, not the softened water from faucets, Navoy explained.
Staff writers Todd B. Bates and Jean Mikle contributed to this story
Home News Tribune
Published: August 11, 1998
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