Environmental specialists at Naval Support Activity Naples, Italy, retrieve detectors in buildings for radon testing in September. Base commanding officer Capt. John Randazzo had previously dismissed the test results in February, stating that faulty blank-control detectors suggested an issue with the entire testing process. (Sean P. Rinner/U.S. Navy)
NAPLES, Italy — The Navy’s largest installation in Italy validated test results showing potentially dangerous radon levels at base schools and elsewhere, an about-face from an earlier rejection of the findings as unreliable.
A Naval Support Activity Naples school reception area, locker room and teacher’s offices are among areas with levels of the gas requiring action, the base said Tuesday in a Facebook statement.
They are among 37 offices, workspaces and other locations around the base with excessive radon levels, according to the statement. Studies have linked the colorless, odorless gas to lung cancer.
Environmental Protection Agency guidelines say radon levels consistently at or above 4.0 picocuries per liter of air are hazardous. Levels found at the base range from 4.0 to 12.1 picocuries, data show.
The base is taking “immediate steps to prioritize and address every one of these cases,” NSA Naples commander Capt. John Randazzo said in the statement.
Among those cases is a locker room at the middle/high school with a radon level of 10.7 picocuries. Several areas at an offsite computer and telecommunications station, including a watch floor, showed levels ranging from 4.3 to 12.1, according to the data.
In explaining the switch in accepting the results, Randazzo said the base had conducted a comprehensive analysis of the data to address quality assurance concerns.
“That detailed analysis, which was not available at the time of the initial (quality assurance) concern, demonstrated the results are within the acceptable standards for accuracy and precision,” Randazzo said in the statement.
It wasn’t immediately clear what measures the base will take to mitigate radon in those and other areas or how it would fund its efforts. But the mitigation measures will be completed within two years, officials said.
Radon levels can be lowered by means ranging from temporary measures like increasing ventilation to adding a professionally installed depressurization system.
In February, Randazzo said the base was rejecting the results of a yearlong radon survey due to faulty blank control detectors. Those detectors indicated a problem with the entire testing process, Randazzo said.
The base did not release the results of the study conducted at nonresidential facilities from 2024-25, but said then that it hoped to complete retesting by 2027.
This week’s announcement is the latest development in a yearslong effort to address radon issues at the base following a Defense Department Inspector General investigation prompted by a whistleblower complaint.
NSA Naples didn’t do timely radon testing at some homes, offices, medical facilities and child care centers as required by Navy policy, the IG report said in 2024.
Investigators also found that base officials hadn’t notified military personnel and their families that NSA Naples had the Navy’s highest rating for potentially excessive levels of radon, among other findings.
In response, the base launched a campaign using social media, newsletters and other platforms to raise awareness about radon risks. It also conducted the yearlong radon exposure test, which ended last fall.
Radon forms when the radioactive metals uranium, thorium or radium break down naturally in rocks, soil and water. People are exposed to the gas when it seeps through cracks and gaps in buildings, according to the EPA.
