The Nation - News from Dec. 3, 1987

The House voted overwhelmingly to spend $14 million to help small towns reduce levels of cancer-causing radium in their drinking water supplies. The plan was approved as an amendment to a bill appropriating $492 million over three years for research into ground water contamination. House members voted 399 to 15 in favor of the research bill after agreeing unanimously to the radium-assistance amendment sponsored by Rep. Dennis J. Hastert (R-Ill.). Radium, which enters deep wells from bedrock where it was deposited by glaciers millions of years ago, is a radioactive chemical proven to cause cancer.