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Need to remember that coal ash, too, contains radioactive dust

NIRPC committee wants radiation study in The Pines Duneland Community.com November 24, 2012    Lauri Harvey Keagle A Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission Environmental committee wants the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate radiation levels in The Pines after hearing concerns from residents
over coal ash from a facility in their community.

Paul Kysel and Larry Jensen of PINES — People in Need of
Environmental Safety — addressed the NIRPC Environmental Management
Policy Committee earlier this month with the results of the group’s
radiation study.

Jensen, a former EPA employee, is a physicist with a master’s degree
in radiation and public health. He described himself as an
award-winning “Superfund and radiation expert.”

Jensen presented the results of an independent radiation study he
performed for the PINES group in 2009 using a hand-held meter. The
study focused on the streets in The Pines, which were built using fly
ash — a byproduct of burning coal for fuel — as fill.

“Quite a few towns and municipalities around power plants are given
fly ash as safe fill,” Kysel said……
Jensen said all areas surveyed in The Pines exceed the natural
background level for radiation.

“There’s something that’s not normal,” Jensen said…… Longtime
region environmentalist Charlotte Read moved for the NIRPC
environmental committee to draft a letter to the EPA asking for a
formal study. The letter would proceed to the full NIRPC board and
would require that group’s approval before being forwarded to the EPA.

“Everyone has basically ignored them for years,” Read said. “It’s just
a story of a small group of people who care, did their own study,
raised a lot of money,” Read said.,,,
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/duneland/the-pines/nirpc-committee-wants-radiation-study-in-the-pines/article_2b32e3a0-7b77-5b33-aa87-ee8183da6a05.html

November 26, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, USA