Any radiation received externally through showering, washing, or other uses is not a hazard since alpha particles do not travel through your skin. Absorbed radium behaves similarly to calcium and is deposited in the tissues of the body, especially bone. Some absorbed radium is excreted in urine. The rest is passed unchanged from the body. Only a small portion of ingested radium is absorbed from the digestive tract and distributed throughout the body. Radium in water may pose a hazard to human health when the water is used for drinking or cooking. All public water supplies are tested regularly for radium. Unless your private water supply has been tested for radium, you should not assume your water is radium-free. Radium cannot be seen, tasted, or smelled in your drinking water. However, radium has been found in some private and public wells. Most shallow aquifers do not contain higher levels of radium. Most of the private wells in Illinois draw their well water from aquifers that are much shallower than those used by public water supplies. In Illinois, high radium levels occur primarily in the northern third of the state due to the presence of radium in the granite bedrock that surrounds aquifers from which water supplies are drawn.
Deep bedrock aquifers used for drinking water sometimes contain levels of Ra-226 and Ra-228 that exceed health-based regulatory standards. Surface water is usually low in radium but groundwater can contain high levels of radium depending on local geology. The main type of radiation emitted by radium is the alpha particle. The most common isotopes in Illinois groundwater are Ra-226 and Ra-228. Radium can be present in several forms, called isotopes. Small amounts of radium also can be found in groundwater supplies. Radium (Ra) is a naturally occurring radioactive element that is present in varying amounts in rocks and soil within the earth’s crust. Radium in Drinking Water Fact Sheet Radium in Drinking Water What Is Radium?
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