ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    January 24, 1991
    VILLAGE OF SENECA,
    )
    )
    Petitioner,
    PCB 90—194
    V.
    )
    (Variance)
    ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
    )
    PROTECTION AGENCY,
    )
    )
    Respondent.
    DISSENTING OPINION
    (by J.D. Dumelle):
    The Village of Seneca has known since August
    23, 1985 that
    its water supply exceeded the Federal and Illinois radium
    drinking water standard.
    Thus their delay
    in complying makes a
    self—imposed hardship.
    Radium is not some benign metal which perhaps is
    (a)
    needed
    in the body and
    (b) has some threshold value beyond which illness
    occurs.
    Radium
    is an ionizing metal.
    Ra—226 is an alpha radiation
    emitter with a half—life of 1,600 years.
    Ra—228
    is a beta
    radiation emitter with a half—life of 5.7 years.
    Ionizing radiation causes cancer.
    One need only read Marie
    Curie’s story where the discoverer of radium in 1898 later died
    of cancer no doubt brought on by radiation from this newly
    discovered element.
    Radium acts like calcium in the body and seeks out the bone
    structure.
    Once there it radiates the adjacent tissue.
    Bone
    cancer can result.
    Head and sinus cancers can also occur.
    Which population group is most at risk?
    The Illinois
    Department of Nuclear Safety’s report “Background Document on
    Radium in Drinking Water” filed August
    25, 1986 in R85—14 tells
    us.
    It is babies and teen—agers!
    (See p.
    5)
    The very Federal and Illinois radium standard is much too
    loose.
    And Seneca exceeds that standard!
    At the standard, the
    cancer risk over
    a 70 year lifetime
    is 1—in—l4,300.
    That
    is
    exactly 70 times greater than the usual l—in—l,000,000 risk
    advocated by USEPA for carcinogens.
    I would urge the people of Seneca not to give their water,
    even if the radium standard
    is reached,
    to babies or to teen-
    agers.
    Those groups of children are in a rapid growth spurt and
    118—17 1
    incorporate the radium into their bone structure.
    And
    I would
    urge Seneca to complete the new well as soon as possible.
    I•
    j~~b~2
    Ja ob
    ~.
    Dumelle, ?.E.
    L
    R-CEC-USNR
    (Ret)
    B ard Member
    IT
    IS SO ORDERED.
    I, Dorothy M.
    Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
    Board hereb
    certify that the a o e Dissenting Opinion was filed
    on the
    .~Z
    day of
    _________________,
    1991.
    Illinois P~XlutionControl Board
    118—172

    Back to top