Is Your Michigan Home Safe? Radon Hot Zones Revealed

Depending on where in Michigan you live, you may be very familiar with radon gas and mitigation efforts or, perhaps, you've never given the inert gas a second thought.

Radon is a naturally occurring element (a noble gas, if you're into chemistry) and it thought to be a cause of lung cancer with long exposure to the gas.

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As it occurs naturally in the ground the amount of radon present in the environment can vary greatly from place to place. The Environmental Protection Agency has divided the country into three regions  based on the average amount of radon present.

Many homes in areas in Zone 1 - the highest radon zone - have mitigation systems in their basements that take the gas out of a potential pooling environment underground and releases it harmlessly into the air.

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This is what a home's radon mitigation system looks like and how it works:

Zone 1 Radon Areas of Michigan

There are several counties in Lower Michigan in the EPA's Zone 1 for the highest concentrations of radon.

Along the Indiana border: Cass, St Joseph, Branch, Hillsdale and Lenawee

And the next tier of counties north: Kalamazoo, Calhoun, Jackson and Washtenaw.

So that includes cities like Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Jackson, Ann Arbor, Sturgis, Coldwater, Hillsdale and Adrian.

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From the state's radon awareness website:

one in every four Michigan homes is expected to have radon levels that exceed the recommended federal action level? This matters because radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer, behind smoking. You can't see, smell or taste radon. The only way to know if you have elevated radon levels is to test.

Radon tests are commonly available in hardware stores.

Article inspired by this radon map and discussion on Reddit's r/geography.