EPA radon month focuses national media on local health mines

Come January, two things are reliable in Boulder and Basin: cows approaching calving, and local radon health mines making national headlines during National Radon Action Month, a program of the Environmental Protection Agency.

This Jan. 17, one such headline — “Radon Causes Cancer. These Tourists Drink it Up.” — was published in the New York Times atop a column by graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton. In words and drawings, she described her visit to Basin’s Merry Widow Health Mine — she doesn’t indicate when — and juxtaposes people’s claims of radon’s health benefits with the EPA’s warning that exposure to the element is a health risk.

Merry Widow’s co-owner, Chung Kim, whom MacNaughton depicted in her column, didn’t respond to an email requesting his take on it.