To ensure the air quality of a century-old courthouse as a workplace, the county sent air samples from the basement of the old courthouse to a lab to test for cancer-causing radon.

The space, which has been used for storage, will be occupied by the Freeborn County Sheriff’s Office and Albert Lea Police Department investigators from this summer to July of next year, when they will move into the new facility.

Samples were also taken from the basement of the 1954 building, where the public health department will move in, and the law-enforcement center, where the 9-1-1 dispatch, sheriff’s office and city police administration will remain.

Radon is a radioactive gas produced from minerals such as uranium and radium. It may enter indoor areas, particularly into basement rooms, through cracks in the wall and floor.

The U.S. Surgeon General warns it is the second leading of lung cancer after smoking.

Two out of 1,000 people could get lung cancer by being exposed to an elevated level of radon over a lifetime, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The odds jump up to 29 in 1,000 for smokers.

Though the average indoor radon level is 1.3 picocuries per liter (pc/l) nationwide, Beth Kallestad of Minnesota Department of Health Indoor Air Unit said Minnesota soil contains a higher amount of radon because of its geological characteristics.

Kallestad said the agency recommends to have another more detailed tests when the indicator exceeds the hazardous 4.0 pc/l level, and install a device to depressure the surrounding soil so the radon gas will not diffuse into the building.

The old courthouse is considered to be more vulnerable to radon entry than the other two buildings because of its age.

County Administrator Ron Gabrielsen said two past tests in 1992 and ’98 found levels below the 4.0 standard. If the test result is different this time, he said the county would take necessary measures to make a safe work environment for its employees.