Great. Just fucking great.

...note well the "Don't Worry, Be Happy" sentiment in paragraph four...

Department of Public Health: Small amounts of radiation detected in state rainwater following Japan nuclear disaster
March 27, 2011 01:30 PM
By Katheleen Conti, Globe Staff

Low levels of radioactive iodine likely resulting from the nuclear accident in Japan have been detected in a sample of rainwater in Massachusetts, state health officials said today.

The amounts of radioiodine are "very low concentrations" and should have "no impact on state drinking water supplies," the Department of Public Health said in a statement.

The sample was taken during the past week as part of regular monitoring of radioactivity on the environment by the US Environmental Protection Agency. No detectable increases in radiation have been discovered in the air, the statement said, and there are no expected public health concerns.

"The drinking water supply in Massachusetts is unaffected by this short-term, slight elevation in radiation," said John Auerbach, commissioner of the Department of Public Health. "However, we will carefully monitor the drinking water as we exercise an abundance of caution."

The rest: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/03/department_of_p.html?p1=News_links

I guess we'll know the truth of all this in a few years, when cases of thyroid cancer spike nationally.

:banghead:

Honestly, I have no idea how worried I should be about this.

no ships, only for medicene

about levels here in Cali...

:sarcasm: :sarcasm:

:hi:

And me on the west coast bathing in showers of the stuff!

If they are detecting it on the east coast, it's already worse than they keep saying. Trace amounts detected...the rest just washes all over us all.

why are there no numbers published? Publish that itty bitty number and I might be reassured. Kinda. Refusing to release the numbers makes me question the veracity of the statements. It's also treating the citizenry like children who just don't need to know the complicated details the adults are dealing with. It's ridiculous.

Not saying we shouldn't know, but that's my guess as to why -- trying to avoid unnecessary panic.

Some of it seems to be journalistic laziness. Unnecessary panic is easier to quell with facts rather than the fuzzy reporting in this article. There's less likelihood of people running around waving their arms screaming, "what's going on?!" if sources actually bother to explain what's going on. The more paternalistic types among us don't see it that way, though.

http://bostonherald.com/blogs/news/city_desk_wired/?p=2878

The concentration of I-131 was 79 pCi/L (picocuries per liter). Picocuries are a trillionth of a curie. Seriously not a threat.

Very, very low amount. There was no refusal to release the numbers. The source in the OP didn't print them. The link above did. They were released.

I've seen so many articles lately using phrases like "small amounts" or "low levels" without actually giving a value to those levels that it was getting irritating. Nice to see a source that bothers to publish information complete enough for people to process and understand. It's telling that the source is a blog rather than than the news article, which also should have made the effort.

DPH will continue to monitor precipitation and ambient air samples for the presence of radionuclides that may be associated with the Japan event and to assess trends, whether increasing or decreasing. As an added precaution, DPH will also work with the state Department of Environmental Protection to collect and analyze additional drinking water samples (where the drinking water source is a surface water body) for the presence of I-131.

Goes to show it is possible to give complete information and be reassuring at the same time. I do wish they'd presented the info without the "doses of radiation from natural sources like rocks, bricks, and sun" apples to oranges comparison. That misleading crap needs to stop.

Reassured for now, though I wasn't really that concerned. Yet. Wait until the levels spike or continue over a long period of time, or if other radionuclides show up...sigh.

Thanks again for the link.

stories come up. It's the fault of the media outlet for not publishing the numbers. The agency reports them, but the newspaper or other outlet doesn't print them. They can be hard to find, sometimes, but they're always there.

... wearing a radium-dial wristwatch back in the 50s. :dunce:

then. After that, they switched to tritium for watches. I remember when I built my first Geiger counter, when I was 13, from plans in Popular Electronics magazine in 1958. I tested it using my father's radium dial watch. It seemed like a miracle that it worked. I was a serious geek back then. Now, I'm still a geek, but not so serious about it.

Boy would I love to believe that...yet still the memories of 9/11 linger...

Like Satan changing his name to Stan makes any difference.

weren't known for years...decades later, there's still lots of unanswered questions.
~~~~ I am re-sharing the links below ~~~~
These threads were posted yesterday, important to see and understand the measurements as well as historical understatements by govt:
~~~~
"ghost town"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

it gives some initial info about measuring radiation and is a wonderful photo journal of a trip through chernobyl country

and that led me to this:
a video documentary about chernobyl in detail... (please note the 8th segment where the govt. woman has files from the early investigations and cover up, where the levels and deaths were significantly higher...but never admitted to this day.)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
~~~~
not trying to be a hysteric...but radioactivity does NOT just evaporate or go away.
plutonium has a HALF life of 245,000 years, that's some serious shit. and we are all sitting on top of this stuff, it's being stored as waste because nobody can figure out what to do with it, right here in the US in several places, and what about all the warheads we 'dissasembled' are they really safe?

oh god, not good thoughts at all....

Use our ICBM's to launch that shit towards the sun.

The half life is about 24,000 years - it's easy to look it up.

That's still longer than recorded human history

And actually, radioactivity IS something that "just goes away" - the question is always how long it takes.

It is inter-active. There are boxes for 3 kinds of radiation: Cesium, Xeon-133, Iodine 131.
There are boxes at top for days of the week.
There is a box to click on also for a loop play.

This link will bring up Sunday for Xeon-133:

http://www.woweather.com/weather/news/fukushima?LANG=us&VAR=niludmanc133&HH=9

Xenon 133 only has a half life of 5.4 days and decays into a stable non-radioactive form of cesium. This appears to be the only widespread radioactive isotope over most of the USA.

This is just the first wave...the situation in Japan has gotten worse. I wonder if the levels will go up now that two of the Japanese plants seem to have big troubles and the radiation there has increased.

"Summer of Glow" for all of us. That's pretty extreme, though.

The natural radioactivity of water in my own tap exceeds these levels yet I still venture into the shower most days. The non-radioactive stuff creeping in from agricultural runoff is even worse. We've got places in our county where the groundwater is thoroughly unsafe for babies because of nitrate contamination.

I'm not apologizing for the nuclear industry, in a lot of ways the situation in Japan is a clusterfuck. These plants are the Chevy Vegas or Ford Pintos or Space Shuttles of the nuclear industry.

There is so much about the 'seventies that sucked.

There is water there that you simply cannot drink. That's why so many teeth rot out in the region from drinking soda, because that's the only non-alcoholic alternative.

Beyond that, I have no idea what you're trying to say.

in VT, NH and ME. Kind of :scared:

At least human beings can make some choices to steer ourselves away from it. Animals and birds are totally exposed to the elements. They have maximum exposure to whatever is in the wind and the rain, no protection, no knowledge, no responsibility for contaminating the earth, and no choice.

...from this incident so we'll get to do it all again later,
bigger, better...



Maybe we all should learn the words to "Waltzing Matilda"?
Now, while "there is still time!"?

Tesha

all the nuclear testing that was going on. These amounts are absolutely nothing to be alarmed at. I would worry a lot more about chemicals used on fruit and vegetables. They are 1,000 more potent than these trace amounts of radiation.

:shrug:

What amazes me is guys like William Pitt and even Thom Hartman, both who I highly respect seem very naive on this issue. I am not a big pro-nuclear guy but I also don't think it is as dangerous as gas and oil. For that matter if 200 Million families installed solar panels on there houses there would probably be thousands killed in accidents with people falling off rooftops. Probably even more deaths than from nuclear power plants. Rooftop construction is extremely dangerous with lots of deaths each year.

I am more concerned with depleted uranium than nuclear power. It may not be the only cause of the huge increase in birth defects being seen in Iraq right now, but it is, almost certainly, one of the causes. According to my dad who is a hot atom chemist who worked for Los Alamos labs, White Sands proving grounds, Sandia Nat. Labs etc, uranium-238 decays through a series of radioactive "daughters" including radium-226 with a half-life of 1600 years, Ra-226 will reach half it's maximum radiation level in 1600 years. Depleted uranium will be a growing problem over the long term. The end product from the decay of U-238 is lead-206 which is not radioactive, but it takes a long time to get there. U-238 has a half life of 4.5 billion years so will be around for a very long time.


I think the depleted uranium in our weapons is a much bigger issue than the threat from nuclear power.

I unrecc'd it for you to cancel out your accidental rec :) I agree completely with your post. I'd go a step further and say the corporate media is simply using this to scare the public and distract them from the onslaught of the Rethuglican governors on the working class.

It's especially vile to use it as a weapon because it continues to do damage long after the fighting has ended.

Not caring about other people or the environment must be the effect of all that radiation.

Would love to get away from oil and nuclear but the trace amounts of radiation over the US are much less dangerous than a small sunburn.

... are also the ones most likely to panic about minute levels of radioactive iodine falling on their homes here in America.

for the babies if it would be enough of an increase to worry about as they are most vulnerable

the benefits to fruits and vegetables from irradiated rain.

"Hey, it will be just like that episode of 'Gilligan's Island' when the castaways planted radioactive seeds that gave them special powers!"

That would be pretty cool.

The only problem is that most of Americans would need to hit the gym first.

Maybe the radioactivity will help them lose a few pounds.

it doesn't come and go. it comes and stays.

so drinking water every day . . . breathing air every day . . .

eating radiated food every day . . .