ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    May 22, 1986
    VILLAGE OF LAKE ZURICH,
    )
    Petitioner,
    v.
    )
    PCB 86—41
    ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
    PROTECTION AGENCY,
    )
    Respondent.
    DISSENTING OPINION (by J. D. DuTnelle):
    The majority has found that the health risks at the radium
    content of the Lake Zurich water to be “minimal” (p. 5). I
    disagree. Radium is a carcinogen and has no threshold for its
    effects. There are real risks.
    The Federal Register of August 14, 1975 gives the risk as
    “between 0.7 and 3 fatal cancers annually per million exposed
    persons” at 5 pCi/i of combined radium. Lake Zurich has water at
    5.7 pCi/i so the risk would rise slightly to 0.8 to 3.4,
    averaging 2.1.
    Thus every year new residents drink the water an individual
    cancer risk of 2.1 per million or l—in—476,000 will occur. The
    variance runs for almost 5 years and the risk over that period
    becomes l—in—92,000 for someone beginning to drink the water in
    1986. Does the public really understand that this risk exists?
    It is quite possible that the risk given above is
    understated. The Agency does not cite or provide two recent
    studies on cancer (including leukemia) and radium in drinking
    water. The respected Journal of the American Medical Association
    on August 2, 1985 carried a paper titled “Association of Leukemia
    with Radium Groundwater Contamination” and is authored by a
    physician, Dr. Gary H. Lyman and others. The article points out
    that “A significant association between leukemia incidence and
    the extent of groundwater incidence and the extent of groundwater
    contamination with radium is reported herein.” It urges further
    studies.
    A related paper is “Drinking Water and Cancer Incidence in
    Iowa” by Dr. Judy A. Bean and others. This appeared in the
    American Journal of E~pidemiology (Vol. 116, No. 6). A conclusion
    was “Incidence rates of cancers of the lung and bladder among
    males and of cancers of the breast and lung among females were
    70-44
    —2—
    higher in towns with a radium 226 level in the water supply above
    5.0 pCi/l.” More studies are also urged.
    The USEPA is currently evaluating the radium standard. It
    may well find these two studies and others so convincing that the
    radium standard will be tightened in 1987.
    A major point at issue in this and related proceedings is
    whether a “threshold” exists for ionizing radiation effects. The
    Agency’s principal technical witness, Dr. Richard E. Toohey,
    feels that there is a threshold.
    The April 26, 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant
    in the Ukraine has raised this same issue. The New York Times of
    May 18, 1986 in an article by Malcolm W. Browne sums up the
    controversy as follows:
    The long term effects of relatively small
    doses of radiation include increased
    susceptibility to cancer, but these effects
    are hard to quantify and remain the subject
    of scientific controversy. According to one
    school of thought, there may be a threshold
    of ionizing radiation below which tissues are
    able to repair themselves, leaving a person
    essentially unscathed. But an opposing view
    is that any amount of ionizing radiation,
    however small, inevitably causes damage of
    the kind that can lead to genetic disruptions
    and cancer. The difference between these
    views accounts for the widely varying
    predictions of the global total of cancer
    cases from Cherriobyl’s
    fallout.
    The USEPA risk estimate, mentioned above, is an annual risk.
    It
    is based upon the “no threshold” theory.
    I agree that there is no threshold for radiation effects.
    Because there is a real risk to people of cancer and leukemia
    from the Lake Zurich drinking water I dissent.
    Dumelle, P.E.
    70-45
    —3—
    I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
    Board, hereby c~rtifythat the above Dissenting Opinion was filed
    on the
    /~‘~
    day of
    _
    _l986.
    Dorothy M. ~unn, Clerk
    Illinois Pollution Control Board
    70-46

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