Immediate health risks from drinking water containing low radioactivity levels are small, but consuming this water for a lifetime increases the health risks. Another natural radioactive element, uranium, has been detected in a few Wisconsin wells. Currently there is no drinking water standard for uranium. Currently, approximately 50 of Wisconsin's 1,300 community water systems exceed the drinking water standard for radium. Efforts are underway to identify the best methods of reducing radium in drinking water and disposing the wastes from treatment processes.
All rock contains some radium, usually in small amounts.
Groundwater, which moves slowly through the pores or cracks in underground layers of rock, dissolves minerals as it travels. Where the rock contains significant amounts of radium, and the groundwater moves at a slow enough rate, the water can pick up higher amounts of radium. In Wisconsin, most of the community water supplies which exceed the radium standard draw water from a deep sandstone aquifer and are located in a narrow band which stretches from Green Bay to the Illinois state line. In addition, a few high radium levels have been found in groundwater from sandstone formations in west central Wisconsin and in granite formations in north central Wisconsin. In all cases, the radium was there long before the first well was drilled.