When I moved to Yorktwon Heights, Westchester in the eighties we found a lovely place to rent. A little house sitting right in the woods next to a New York City water reservoir. My kids at that time were 5 and 8 years old both with blond hair. After a couple of months living in the area we discovered small black points on the skin of the kids. They were easy to spot much easier on my skin. Then we started to look around e.g. we saw a lot of people with dark spots standing in line at the local McDonalds. Young people with small dots, older people with larger spots. By that time we discovered that we were living very close to the Indian Point nuclear power plant at the Hudson. Most of the time the wind came from West, directly from the plant in our backyard.
At that point we visited the local doctor who wondered that he had not diagnozed the problem earlier although most of his patients had the same problem. Immediately we thought that the nuclear fallout from Indian Point would cause the problem. However, after some research with professional help our doctor discovered that the spots on the skin were caused by natural Radon gases. The granite rocks our house was built on were the source of the gas which was accumulated in the basement of the house and could easily flow into our living area because there was no concrete floor as a barrier. Natural Radon gases are more dangerous for people’s health than the radiation of nuclear plants. Surprisingly enough this problem is not discussed a lot in the public and most people living in areas with high Radon radiation are not aware of the problem, which is a serious cancer risk. Areas with granit rocks e.g. the millionaire belt North-West of New York and New England are exposed to high Radon radiation.
