When a pulmonologist told Gail Orcutt she had lung cancer in May 2010, the non-smoker was shocked. She began researching and quickly learned about radon and its prevalence in Iowa, where she lived her entire life. She tested both her childhood and current homes, both of which had dangerous levels.
Yet, Orcutt’s five remaining siblings do not have lung cancer. Nor does her husband. Seeking answers, Orcutt turned her attention to the Iowa schools where she spent much of her life, as a student, then as a teacher of 33 years. Orcutt died of lung cancer in May of 2020.
“It only stands to reason, if it’s down there underneath the surface, and a schoolhouse is an enclosure, it’s going to trap whatever’s coming up,” said Bill Orcutt, Gail’s widower, in the Altoona home the 83-year-old now occupies alone. “So that’s her being a teacher, she says, ‘You know, maybe we ought to look at this whole school thing.’ And so she dug into that.”
Levels of radon are described in picocuries, a miniscule measurement that may be difficult to comprehend. However, the EPA considers a radon amount of 4.0 picocuries per liter (4 pCi/L) as cause for concern.
Gail Orcutt spent most of her last decade raising awareness about radon exposure and lobbying state lawmakers to pass legislation mandating testing for the radioactive gas in schools.
More than five years have passed since Orcutt’s death, and it’s been more than three years since the passage of the Gail Orcutt Radon School Safety Act that requires all of Iowa’s school districts to test for radon once before July 1, 2027, post the results on their websites “in a timely manner,” and retest every five years.
The Iowa Departments of Education (IDOE) and Health and Human Services (HHS) are responsible for certifying experts who test schools for radon, “but there is no reporting requirement to a state agency,” according to an HHS email sent to The Midwest Newsroom.
In the absence of a list showing the testing status of Iowa school districts, The Midwest Newsroom attempted to find that information. After reviewing the records of EAIS and searching district websites for results, we contacted the remaining school districts with unknown statuses.
- 151 school districts have tested for radon or have started doing so, and 81 of those show the results on their websites in compliance with law.
- 35 districts are registered for training in October with EAIS and will start testing this winter.
- 6 districts said they have started testing.
- 7 said they are starting this year.
- 33 districts said they have not yet started.
- 93 districts did not respond to queries from The Midwest Newsroom so their status is unknown
The Midwest Newsroom also asked Iowa’s education and health departments if and how they will monitor and enforce compliance at the deadline. HHS said it has no responsibility to do so. IDOE did not respond.
Radon is a naturally occurring gas caused by the decomposition of Radium-226 found abundantly in the glacial soil of the Midwest.
Many school districts have had to mitigate buildings after tests reported elevated radon levels, including Des Moines Public Schools. Testing by DMPS as early as 2012 revealed levels more than five times the action level of 4 pCi/L in some rooms. Results as high as 40 pCi/L — 10 times the action level — have been recorded in other school districts more recently, and some experts worry children and teachers in districts that have not yet tested could also unknowingly be exposed to dangerously high levels of radon in the period before the 2027 deadline.
“Children are particularly vulnerable to the health effects of radon exposure,” said Dr. Richard Deming, medical director of MercyOne Richard Deming Cancer Center in Des Moines. “Primarily due to their developing lungs and faster breathing rates, which increase their risk of lung cancer and other health issues.”
Deming, a radiation oncologist, also said that radon exposure is cumulative, so the earlier someone is exposed to it, the greater the risks. If, like Gail Orcutt, an exposed student goes on to become a teacher in radon-positive buildings, the risks are even greater.
Deming worked with Gail Orcutt for nearly 10 years, treating her lung cancer and accompanying her to the Iowa State Capitol Building to meet with legislators. Their message was simple: It is important to test schools for radon, the sooner the better.
“She was a teacher, and even when she retired from teaching in public schools, she remained a teacher,” Deming said. “And her pupils became the Iowa legislators.”
But the law does not provide public funding for testing and mitigation, and school districts often have difficulty finding extra funds in their budgets, which may delay testing and prolong potential exposure of students and teachers to radon.
“Had there been funding to help with the testing and the mitigation, it would make it a stronger bill,” Deming said. “But it might not have gotten passed.”
The bill passed the Iowa Senate 47-0 and was signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds on May 24, 2022. Bill Orcutt said his wife would have been overjoyed that day, but that she would not have stopped there.
“She would be back down at the legislators and say, ‘Yes, we got this thing passed, but in the meantime, how many people are being exposed to radon?’” Orcutt said. “I can hear her say that.”
'We grow radon'
Since a 2024 study reported that Iowa has the second-highest and fastest-growing new cancer rates in the U.S., there has been sharper focus on the illness in the state. While the causes of many types of cancer are unclear, lung cancer — the third-most diagnosed and deadliest in Iowa — is less debatable. Behind cigarettes, radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer, the occurrence of which has dropped only 5% in Iowa from 1990 to 2019, compared with a 23% reduction in rates in the U.S. overall, according to the Iowa Cancer Registry.
Radon is nobody’s fault. There is no industry that releases it. It is a naturally occurring gas caused by the decomposition of Radium-226 found abundantly in the glacial soil of the Midwest.
Iowa is one of only two states in which every county is rated at the EPA’s highest risk for potential radon exposure. The other, North Dakota, has roughly one quarter of Iowa’s population. According to Iowa Health Care, about 400 people die each year from radon exposure in Iowa, which has the highest average radon concentrations in the country.
“Our soil is rich. It grows lots of wonderful things. Also underneath it is the uranium that decays into radon,” said Julie Weisshaar, the executive director of Energy Association of Iowa Schools, a nonprofit based in Creston, Iowa. “We grow radon, and so we’ve got to test and make sure that it's not getting caught in our buildings.”
Too complicated?
Efforts to expand radon testing in schools have not stopped in Gail Orcutt’s absence. As private schools started to grow in number thanks to Iowa’s new Education Savings Account (ESA) program, some lawmakers introduced a bill in 2024 to include mandatory radon testing. Private schools are currently exempt from the Gail Orcutt Radon School Safety Act, even if they receive public funds through the ESA program. The bill never got out of the House Education Committee.
“I can’t speak to why the majority chose not to assign a subcommittee to even hear that bill,” said Iowa Rep. Kenneth Croken, who represents much of Scott County. He cosponsored the legislation, which included multiple provisions to hold nonpublic schools to the same standards as their public counterparts.
“That, perhaps, made the issue too complicated,” Croken said.
In addition to questions about the 2024 measure, The Midwest Newsroom brought to Croken’s attention the current absence of compliance and enforcement mechanisms. As a result, he said, he has started drafting radon-specific legislation that he will introduce in the upcoming session. Croken said it will clarify roles and responsibilities of stakeholders under the existing law, as well as extend its requirements to private schools.
“We ought to be focused on the safety of the children,” Croken said. “And testing for radon is just a common-sense approach that ought to be required for any school operation, whether it be public or private, funded entirely by public funds or entirely by private funds.”
Whatever its shortcomings, the Iowa law is one of the strongest radon school safety laws in the country. Large swaths of nearby states like South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota also have high levels of radon, but none have laws that require testing in schools. Illinois and Wisconsin officially recommend testing for radon in schools.
Under a voluntary testing statute, 39% of schools in Minnesota have tested. Nebraska’s two largest school districts, Omaha and Lincoln, are in radon “hotspots” and have conducted voluntary testing.
Testing for radon can be done any time of year, but Energy Association of Iowa Schools recommends the winter, when pressure from heated buildings pulls radon up from the ground and closed windows retain it. The association has facilitated the testing of 129 districts, and 35 more have signed up for its training program this October. After this coming winter, there is only one more in which school districts can complete optimized tests before the 2027 deadline.
“We just want schools to meet the law and be able to focus on what they do best, which is educating our students,” Weisshaar said.
Testing every room where students gather in every building in a school district, as required by the Iowa law, can get costly. The Davenport Community School District estimates that it will spend roughly $68,000 on testing, which it started last year with its 15 elementary schools. The Cedar Rapids Community School District has been testing for radon since 2014, according to the district’s preventative maintenance specialist, Connor Aasen. He said the process has been streamlined over the years, resulting in a $3,000 price tag to test eight buildings this year.
For training, test materials, data tracking and lab results, Energy Association of Iowa Schools charges districts between $2,000 and $3,500 per building, plus an annual membership fee. Some school districts only have one, two or three buildings and can complete all the necessary testing in one year, but it makes up a bigger part of their budget.
The West Delaware County Community School District in Manchester paid $11,250 to test its elementary school, middle school and high school, according to Superintendent Jen Vance.
“There is never anything we are able to easily afford,” Vance said in an email to The Midwest Newsroom. “But this was at a price point that we were able to build into our budget without major disruptions to the upkeep of our facilities and grounds.”
Vance said testing gave her district peace of mind, especially since no costly mitigation was necessary. Sometimes, slight elevations in radon levels can be repaired by minor corrective measures, like sealing cracks in a building’s foundation.
For higher elevations, a system of fans and pipes to pull radon from the ground and evacuate it outdoors is required. About 42% of buildings tested by Energy Association of Iowa Schools have required corrective measures and 15% have required mitigation systems, which usually cost between $4,000 and $5,000. Mitigation systems in Des Moines Public Schools have cost between $5,000 to $20,000, depending on the complexity, according to the district’s energy and environmental specialist, Tyler Puls.
“Mitigation systems have to be designed and installed,” Puls said in an email to The Midwest Newsroom. “Typically, systems are made up of suction points, exhaust piping, and fans. There are certifications radon mitigators must hold in order to complete the work.”
DMPS has been testing and mitigating more than 6 million square feet in 69 facilities for more than a decade, according to Puls, although he did not know the total cost for those efforts.
In general, Weisshaar said, “it definitely costs less to fix this than it costs to deal with lung cancer.”
Gail Orcutt’s legacy
Weisshaar said Orcutt contacted her about the language of the bill that would bear her name as it was being written.
“Saying, ‘Does this make sense? Like on the ground, will this work?’” Weisshaar said. “I think it’s because of her that, you know, there aren't any real punitive things in this. It’s meant to come across as supportive.”
That style earned her a nickname from her husband.
“I referred to her as a velvet hammer because she doesn’t come on loud, brash or any of that kind of thing,” Orcutt said. “She’s just consistent and she didn’t give up.”
He said that Gail Orcutt had to be diplomatic due to the resistance to the bill and that she intended to keep pressing the issues of monitoring and enforcement.
“If there’s no penalty for not doing it, then why should I do it?” Orcutt asked, hypothetically. “And they seem to forget the fact that the penalty isn’t being paid by the school district, it’s being paid by the individuals within the building.”
Orcutt welcomes any further legislative efforts. He says Gail would have too.
The Midwest Newsroom is an investigative and enterprise journalism collaboration that includes Iowa Public Radio, KCUR, Nebraska Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR.
There are many ways you can contact us with story ideas and leads, and you can find that information here.
The Midwest Newsroom is a partner of The Trust Project. We invite you to review our ethics and practices here.
METHODS
Reporter Nick Loomis learned that there is no unified list of radon testing status in Iowa schools. He checked the website of every school district in Iowa to see if they had posted radon testing results, as required by the Gail Orcutt Radon School Safety Act. He also acquired a list of districts that have tested with the help of Energy Association of Iowa Schools, many of which had not posted the results online. This indicated that some districts may have tested but had not yet posted the results. He then contacted the districts whose testing status was unknown to find out whether or not they had started or completed the process. In addition to compiling this data, Loomis spoke with the stakeholders and experts featured in this article and conducted research into radon, its risks and origin.
REFERENCES
Radon, the cancer causing gas (Iowa Health Care | Last reviewed March 2018)
EPA Map of Radon Zones (Environmental Protection Agency | Last updated Nov. 15, 2024)
Iowa House File 2412 (Iowa Legislature | May 24, 2022)
Iowa House File 2496 (Iowa Legislature | Feb. 14. 2024)
Why Does Iowa have the 2nd Highest and Fastest Rising Cancer Rate in the United States? (Iowa Cancer Registry | Feb. 12, 2024)
Radon Test Report (Des Moines Public Schools | Last updated Sept. 2025)
A silent killer: Areas of eastern Nebraska identified as radon hot spots
(Nebraska Public Media | June 9, 2025)
Radon exposure is fueling Iowa’s deadliest cancer (Iowa Starting Line | Sept. 3, 2025)
TYPE OF STORY
Local News Expertise - Local expertise is embedded in this news report (individual journalist or team).
News - Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
