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Significant rise in ionising radiation in atmosphere over Southern California

The first tests of summer also indicate a high presence of alpha radiation which, by itself, comprised 75 percent of the overage with beta making up the other 25 percent. Indeed, the alpha detected alone was over 168 percent of background levels of radiation.

While alpha particles are positively charged and are relatively heavy, blocking them is easier than beta or gamma because they travel a short distance before losing energy. Nevertheless, alpha radiation is between 20 to 1,000 times more dangerous to the human organism due to their “relative biological effectiveness” in causing cell-death and cancer according to numerous sources.

Until the EPA ever gets its RadNet system fully operational, Americans will only have a partial idea of how ‘hot’ with radiation its air is. Failure to maintain this system leaves the country at a huge loss should radiological releases happen due to nuclear plant malfunctions and meltdowns as well as terrorism by an expanding list of American enemies who vow to destroy it.

Alpha radiation clouds Los Angeles air, Enviro Reporter.com 3 June 15 The first summer air radiation analysis for Southern California shows a significant uptick in alpha and beta according to a dust analysis completed June 1. Results show radiation registering at 325.7 percent of background levels.

This means that the dust reading in its entirety was over three times background. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers radiation three times background or above to be “significant.”

The California Highway Patrol maintains a three times background trip level to trigger a hazardous materials response by the agency. Hazmat protocols include use of respirators and other body and breathing protections when dealing with a radiation source ionizing at this level or above.

A spring 2015 examination performed April 17 at Radiation Station Santa Monica, which along with eight affiliated radiation stations across America and Australia have completed over 7,322 tests and reports since March 15, 2011, showed radiation at just 78.8 percent above normal.

The first tests of summer also indicate a high presence of alpha radiation which, by itself, comprised 75 percent of the overage with beta making up the other 25 percent. Indeed, the alpha detected alone was over 168 percent of background levels of radiation.

EnviroReporter.com has not found such a high degree of alpha in its sampling in thousands of previous tests conducted over the last four years.

Alpha radiation, which can be stopped by a piece of paper or plastic, is nevertheless the most dangerous to human health of the main different types of radiation: alpha, beta, gamma and X-ray. Ingestion through drink, water or breathing are the main pathways for alpha radiation into people and animals.

While alpha particles are positively charged and are relatively heavy, blocking them is easier than beta or gamma because they travel a short distance before losing energy. Nevertheless, alpha radiation is between 20 to 1,000 times more dangerous to the human organism due to their “relative biological effectiveness” in causing cell-death and cancer according to numerous sources.

EnviroReporter.com’s periodic beta testing of dust acquired from three HEPA filter machines in Santa Monica is in response, in part, to the fact that the EPA’s Los Angeles RadNet beta detecting graphs online have been absent for several years. The L.A. RadNet gamma station appears to be continuing to function.

A June 1 tally of RadNet found only 37 out of 124 beta stations functioning across the United States and Puerto Rico. Large metropolitan areas like New York City, Boston and Chicago all have no beta detection graphs working. States like Florida, with five RadNet locations, have no operating beta graphs at all.

The working beta stations reveal four month highs were found across America. Hitting this dubious milestone included Montgomery Alabama, Tucson Arizona, San Bernardino County California, Hartford Connecticut, Fort Wayne Indiana, Baltimore Maryland, Grand Rapids Michigan, Concord New Hampshire, Toledo Ohia, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and Madison Wisconsin.

Beta radiation includes fission products from nuclear reactors including Cesium-134, Cesium-137 and Strontium-90. Massive amounts of these beta radionuclides have escaped into the air and Pacific Ocean at Fukushima Japan which is in its fifth year of an ongoing triple meltdown that began March 11, 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed most of a huge reactor complex there.

EnviroReporter.com has been testing various media for this escaped radiation ever since. Its highest detections of radiation in the environment came in late 2013 with rain ionization in Death Valley National Park coming in at dozens of times background.

Until the EPA ever gets its RadNet system fully operational, Americans will only have a partial idea of how ‘hot’ with radiation its air is. Failure to maintain this system leaves the country at a huge loss should radiological releases happen due to nuclear plant malfunctions and meltdowns as well as terrorism by an expanding list of American enemies who vow to destroy it.

BY THE NUMBERS:

Radiation Station Santa Monica, California USA

June 1, 2015……….  http://www.enviroreporter.com/2015/06/alpha-radiation-clouds-los-angeles-air/

June 4, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, radiation, USA