In Jordan, “we investigated about forty wells, and in a large number of them we found high levels of
naturally occurring radium,” says
Avner Vengosh in this short expert interview from the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP). “Several studies have shown that long-term exposure to this element in drinking water would increase the probability of bone cancer and leukemia,” and “millions of people are potentially going to be exposed to this level of radium,” he warns. In this short video, ECSP visits Vengosh, associate professor of earth and ocean sciences at Duke University, on location in Durham, North Carolina. Vengosh discusses his recent discovery of
naturally occurring radioactivity in Jordan’s fossil groundwater at levels up to 2000 percent higher than the international drinking-water standard.