FUKISHIMA: RADIOACTIVITY in SEAWATER
Issue 1: The number of radio-nuclides entering the marine environment of the east coast of Japan.
Issue 2: The nature of the radio-nuclides derived from reactor and cooling pond outputs
It’s my conclusion that the official monitoring regime being carried out by TEPCO and other Japanese agencies is inadequate to the task of identifying the potential radiobiological threats to the public.
An OPEN BRIEFING, Tim Deere-Jones: Marine Radioactivity Consultant, timdj@talktalk.netJuly 2013
I’m a UK based Marine Radioactivity Consultant, Researcher and Campaigner whose been researching the subject since the 1980’s and working (on a freelance, independent basis) as a consultant to NGO’s, Green Groups, Citizens Campaign Groups and UK Local Authorities since the 1980’s.
My field work experience and desk review research have been focussed on the behaviour and fate of man made radioactivity in UK and European marine, coastal and estuarine environments and the pathways by which doses of marine radioactivity may be delivered to maritime, coastal zone and island populations.
In the context of the ongoing contamination of the marine environment following the multiple meltdowns and loss of coolant from the Fukushima site I note the ongoing near-site monitoring of the marine environment (sea water) and of some marine environmental media (principally fish, with some marine algae).
However I am deeply concerned to note that a number of highly relevant issues and phenomena relating to the behaviour and fate of the Fukushima sea discharged radioactivity and its potential for delivering doses to human populations remain un-recorded, under researched and/or completely ignored.
Thus it is evident that the true impacts of the radioactive contamination of the Japanese east coast are not being documented or acted upon.
The short, informal briefing, set out in the following pages, identifies and comments on some of those issues and introduces the outcome of a number of UK observations and studies (principally carried out in one of the planets most radioactive sea areas: the Irish Sea and it’s adjacent waters) in order to provide some supporting background information in support of my concerns relating to the Fukushima case.
N.B. Input of the search term “Tim Deere-Jones: Marine Radioactivity” to most of the popular search engines will upload links to a number of fully referenced, scientific and technical reports and studies, on the behaviour, fate and doses potential of marine discharged radioactive wastes in UK and European waters, that I have authored for a number of clients. Continue reading
Cancer risk to children increased with CT scans
They found, after some statistical adjustment, that the group of children exposed to CT scans were 24 percent more likely to develop any cancer during the study time period and that their risk bumped up (about 16 percent or so) with each additional scan. The peril was greater for children exposed at younger ages and was linked to many different types of malignancies — including cancers of the brain, skin, blood and gut
Dr. Dustin Ballard: Examining the trade-offs with CT scans marinij.com By Dr. Dustin BallardIJ correspondent 07/15/2013 IN MEDICINE, like in life, there are almost always trade-offs. Most treatments, even unassuming ones like oxygen, have side effects. And most medical tests hold the potential of unintended consequences.
Consider the recent evidence about the long-term effects of CAT Scan (CT) radiation in children. But, before we get there — please don’t flip out — CTs can be valuable tools, so please don’t decide that you will boycott them entirely. That said, it’s undeniable that there’s been an explosion in the use of CTs, and that this is a concerning trend. Mounting evidence shows that CT exposure in childhood results in a small but real increased risk of cancer later in life. Continue reading
American Medical Association wants action on radiation in seafoods
American Medical Assn. Urges Testing Seafood For Radiation http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=10663 July 11th, 2013 The American Medical Association has passed a resolution calling for the US to continue to monitor and publicly report radiation contamination in seafood. The original resolution included the language that cited Fukushima as a main reason for the concern and focused on the Pacific ocean. The final resolution broadened it to include all seafood.
The resolution was approved before the recent announcement that Fukushima Daiichi has been continually leaking contamination into the Pacific for the last 2+ years.
The resolution is a good step for public health. The current policy of the FDA does no ongoing seafood testing for radiation. That done soon after the Fukushima disaster was vague, using frozen fish of unknown catch date and fish with an unknown catch location within Japan. The FDA and USDA so far have not publicly released any seafood testing for products hauled places other than Japan. The current US contamination level before the government will intervene is 1200 bq/kg far higher than other countries including Japan.
New guidelines allow far greater radiation exposure to the public
For Future Reactor Meltdowns, EPA Means “Extra Pollution Allowed” by JOHN LaFORGE Cutting Corners, Cutting Costs, Creating Cancer
As the nuclear power industry struggles against collapse from skyrocketing costs, bankrupting repair bills and investor flight (four operating reactors were permanently closed this year, more than in any previous 12 month period), the government seems to have capitulated to political pressure to weaken radiation exposure standards and save nuclear utilities billions.
On April 15, the EPA issued new Protective Action Guides (PAGs) for dealing with large scale radiation releases — like the catastrophic triple reactor meltdowns at Fukushima, Japan that spread cesium and radio-iodine worldwide. The new PAGs are like a government bailout, saving reactor owners the gargantuan costs of comprehensive cleanup. And eerily, the new PAGs seem to presume the inevitability of radiation disasters that the industry — with its fleet of 100 rickety 40-year-old units — can’t currently afford to withstand.
According to Daniel Hirsch, President of Committee to Bridge the Gap, the latest PAGs took effect in April but can be amended — and EPA is taking comments. Hirsch says that the National Council on Radiation Protection’s plans for implementing the new PAGs “would allow the public to be exposed to extraordinarily higher levels of radiation than previously permitted” during reactor accident emergencies.
The new PAGs also allow extremely high contamination of food, he says. “In essence,” Hirsch reports, the PAGs say “nuclear power accidents could be so widespread and produce such immense radiation levels that the government would abandon cleanup obligations” forcing people to absorb and live with far more cancers.
To cut costs, industry has long pushed for weakening radiation exposure rules. In 2002, Roger Clarke president of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) warned in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Some people think that too much money is being spent to achieve low levels of residual contamination.” The ICRP recommends exposure standards to governments for nuclear industry workers and the public…….http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/09/for-future-reactor-meltdowns-epa-means-extra-pollution-allowed/
Rising radioactivity in Fukushima’s leaking water
- 11,000 becquerels per liter – TEPCO’s measurement of Cesium-134 on July 9.
- 18,000 becquerels per liter — TEPCO’s measurement of Cesium-137 on July 8.
- 22,000 becquerels per liter – TEPCO’s measurement of Cesium-137 on July 9.
Fukushima Radiation Leaks Rise Sharply By William Boardman, Reader Supported News 11 July 13 “………Here’s another perspective on the same situation:
- 10 becquerels per liter – The officially “safe” level for radioactivity in drinking water, as set by the NRA.
A becquerel is a standard scientific measure of radioactivity, similar in some ways to a rad or a rem or a roentgen or a sievert or a curie, but not equivalent to any of them. But you don’t have to understand the nuances of nuclear physics to get a reasonable idea of what’s going on in Fukushima. Just keep the measure of that safe drinking water in mind, that liter of water, less than a quart, with 10 becquerels of radioactivity.
- 60 becquerels per liter – For nuclear power plants, the safety limit for drinking water is 60 becquerels, as set by the NRA, with less concern for nuclear plant workers than ordinary civilians.
- 60-90 becquerels per liter – For waste water at nuclear power plants, the NRA sets a maximum standard of 90 becquerels per liter for Cesium-137 and 60 becquerels per liter of Cesium-134.
At some of Fukushima’s monitoring wells, radiation levels were in fractions of a becquerel on July 8 and 9. At the well (or wells) that are proving problematical, TEPCO has provided no baseline readings. Continue reading
Permissible radiation doses established by polluters
For Future Reactor Meltdowns, EPA Means “Extra Pollution Allowed”, Counter Punch, Cutting Corners, Cutting Costs, Creating Cancer, by JOHN LaFORGE, 11 July 13,
“……….There is no exposure to ionizing radiation that’s safe. Even the smallest exposures have cellular-level effects that can lead to immune dysfunction, birth defects, cancer and other diseases. The National Academy of Sciences’ 7th book-length on the biological effects of ionizing radiation, BEIR-VII, declared that any exposure, regardless of how small, may cause the induction of cancer. BEIR-VII also explicitly refuted and repudiated the pop culture “hormesus” theory, promoted by industry boosters, that a little radiation is good for us and acts like a vaccination.
Today, the nuclear industry — military, industrial and medical — is required to keep radiation exposures only “as low as reasonably achievable.” This tragicomic standard is neither a medical nor scientific concept. It’s not based on health physics or biology. It’s merely the formal admission that radiation producers cannot keep worker or public exposures to a level that is safe — that is zero.
Exposure limits have been established at the convenience of the military and industrial producers of radioactive pollution, not by medical doctors of health physicists. The late Dr. Rosalie Bertell made clear 36 years ago in Robert Del Tredici’s book At Work In the Fields of the Bomb, “The people with the highest vested interest are the ones that are making the nuclear bombs. And it turns out they have complete control over setting the permissible [radiation exposure] levels.” Since then, little has changed in the regulatory world (although scientists have found that far more damage is caused by low dose radiation than was earlier thought possible): the ICRP’s 1990 recommendations to reduce worker and public exposures by three-fifths has yet to be adopted by the United States.
We can thank industrial and political roadblocks for that, yet in spite of them the government’s permissible dose (lazy reporters often write “safe” dose) of radiation has dramatically decreased over the years — as we’ve come to better understand the toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic properties of low-level exposures. In the 1920s the permissible dose was 75 rem (radiation equivalent man) per year for nuclear industry workers. In 1936, the limit was reduced to 50 rem per year; then 20-25 in 1948; 15 in 1954; and down to 5 rem per year in 1958. The general public is officially allowed to be exposed to one-tenth the workers’ dose, or 0.5 rem per year. The ICRP’s 1990 suggestion was to cut this to 2 and 0.2 respectively.
With cancer rates at pandemic proportions, adding higher radiation exposures to the effects of 80,000 chemicals that contaminate our air, water and food only makes our chance of avoiding the dread disease slimmer. Rather than permitting increased doses of dangerous and sometimes deadly radiation, especially following reactor disasters, the government should be acting to prevent them — like Germany, Italy and Japan — by preparing the phase-out of the country’s accident-prone nukes.
John LaForge is a co-director of Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog and environmental justice group in Wisconsin.
Need for better judgment in use of medical ionising radiation
We’ve known about the risks of radiation for some time, but these three studies quantify the risks. Essentially, they show that relatively low doses of ionising radiation, previously considered ‘safe’ can translate into excess cancer cases.
We believe that these findings call for a change in imaging practice. First, ionising radiation should be a consideration for the referring doctor when deciding whether a patient needs a scan (and if so, what type). Second, imaging techniques and machines that reduce ionising radiation doses should always be used. Finally, government funding models must be reviewed to ensure there are no inappropriate incentives towards a radiating scan.
For example, in Australia, if a young patient presents to a GP with low back pain and the GP orders a scan, Medicare would fund a CT scan but not a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), even though this may be a safer alternative in terms of radiation.
The body of evidence is growing. We need to start translating evidence into practice
The risks of ionising radiation: three new studies and their impact on imaging in sports medicine http://www.clinicalsportsmedicine.com/the-risks-of-ionising-radiation-three-new-studies-and-their-impact-on-imaging-in-sports-medicine-jessica-orchard-and-john-orchard~ Jessica Orchard and John Orchard 2 July 13, In 2012, two major studies were published about the risks of ionising radiation from imaging. Pearce and colleagues’ study in The Lancet examined the excess risk of leukaemia and brain tumours for children and adolescents exposed to computed tomography (CT) scans. They found that children exposed to cumulative doses of 50mGy (3-5 CTs) may have triple the risk of leukaemia, and doses of 60mGy may have almost triple the risk of brain tumours.[1] In addition, the Pijpe and colleagues’ GEN-RAD-RISK paper in theBMJ[2] study showed that women such as Angelina Joliewho carry a specific mutation associated with breast cancer (BRCA1/2), and who were exposed to diagnostic radiation before the age of thirty, had almost twice the risk of breast cancer (with a dose-response pattern). This study involved lower doses, which we have previously considered fairly ‘safe’ (e.g. 4mGy from a single mammogram or shoulder X-ray).
On the basis of these studies, we wrote a blog post and started writing an editorial for theBritish Journal of Sports Medicine. While we were in the final stages of preparing the editorial,[3] a third study was published. The Matthews et al Australian data linkage study,[4] with an enormous cohort (11 million) showed that the adjusted overall cancer incidence for young people exposed to a CT scan was twenty-four percent greater than for those who were not exposed.
That is, one in every 1800 scans resulted in an excess cancer case. As the mean follow up time was only 9.5 years (relatively short in relation to the time taken to develop cancer), this suggests the true lifetime risk may be much higher. We await with interest the relative risk in older people to see whether the risks for the young also apply to those in middle age. Continue reading
Radiation exposure to workers at Hanford
Workers at U.S. nuclear site exposed — Levels “well above threshold for a High Contamination Area” #Hanford http://enenews.com/workers-at-u-s-nuclear-site-exposed-levels-well-above-threshold-for-a-high-contamination-area-hanford
Title: PNNL staffers exposed to radioactive tritium in Richland
Source: The Bellingham Herald
Author: Annette Cary
Date: June 27, 2013
Two Pacific Northwest National Laboratory employees inhaled small amounts of radioactive tritium while doing work in the Hanford 300 Area last month. […]
Tritium inadvertently spread outside the fume hood, including along the routes to radiological trash disposal.
“Contamination levels on the floor immediately adjacent to the fume hood were well above the threshold for a High Contamination Area,” according to the defense board staff report. […]
The event is still under investigation and it’s too soon to say if any changes will be made to laboratory procedures, [PNNL spokesman Greg Koller] said.
See also: TV: “It appears the worst case scenario has happened” at U.S. nuclear site — Most dangerous material on earth “out of control”? — A whopping 800,000 dpm measured outside tank (VIDEO) #Hanford
Radiation stored in forests of Chernobyl: the fire danger
27 Years Later, Radiation Still Hides Out in Chernobyl’s Trees (Fukushima’s Too) The April 26, 1986, meltdown of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power 
Plant scattered radioactive material across 58,000 square miles of eastern Europe. In a ring 18 miles from the destroyed plant, authorities set up the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone—a place where no one is supposed to live (though of course some do.) Scientific American has the story of how, though the disaster took place decades ago, radiation persists in a huge area around the defunct power plant—ready to be re-released to the environment. http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/06/27-years-later-radiation-still-hides-out-in-chernobyls-trees-fukushimas-too/ 30 June 13
In the forests around Chernobyl, the trees have absorbed some of the radioactive fall-out. Washed from the air by the rain, radionuclides are taken up by trees and stored for long periods. The worry, says Scientific American, is that a forest fire could loose this radiation back to the environment.
For almost three decades the forests around the shuttered nuclear power plant have been absorbing contamination left from the 1986 reactor explosion. Now climate change and lack of management present a troubling predicament: If these forests burn, strontium 90, cesium 137, plutonium 238 and other radioactive elements would be released, according to an analysis of the human health impacts of wildfire in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone conducted by scientists in Germany, Scotland, Ukraine and the United States. Continue reading
Hospitak sewage potentially a source of ionising radiation
Another Radiation Source To Consider: Hospital Sewage Forbes, Jeff McMahon, 30 June 13 Researchers found higher than expected levels of radioactive iodine at a Long Island sewer plant that receives effluent from the thyroid cancer treatment center at Stony Brook University, they report in the latest issue of Health Physics.
The research highlights the need for studies of wastewater treatment plants that receive effluent from thyroid cancer treatment facilities, say researchers Paula S. Rose and Lawrence R. Swanson of Stony Brook’s Marine Sciences Research Center.
“This study highlights that medical use can cause substantial fluctuations of I-131 in sewage sludge and the general need for more surveys of I-131 in municipal WCPCs (Wastewater Polution Control Plants),” they write in the August 2013 issue of Health Physics (subscription required).
Rose and Swanson found a concentration of radioactive iodine four times higher than previously published studies of the Stony Brook plant, and at levels that sometimes exceeded the federal dose limit for members of the public……. “Further evaluation of treatment plant worker dose at this plant has been recommended to the Suffolk County Sewer District based on the radiation doses presented here.”
The researchers studied three wastewater treatment plants on Long Island, but found the highest doses at Stony Brook, perhaps because a relatively small treatment plant there serves a regional thyroid cancer center. The Stony Brook Medical Center treats about 60 inpatient thyroid cancer patients per year.
Iodine-131 can be both a cause of thyroid cancer and a solution. Cancers can develop when the thyroid absorbs I-131 instead of stable iodine, and can be included in the cure after doctors remove the thyroid gland and use I-131 to destroy remaining cells. Patients dosed with I-131 become temporarily radioactive, as does their urine. ”Patient excreta” are exempt from regulation in the U.S., and are therefore released into sewer systems.
Iodine 131 has a half life of about eight days.
“Iodine-131 is readily measured in sewage sludge at the Stony Brook WPCP,” according to the study. “The primary source of this radionuclide is excreta from thyroid cancer inpatients treated at the Stony Brook University Medical Center. Frequent inpatient treatments, flow recycling, and sewage sludge removal practices cause 131I to remain in sewage sludge for at least 13 days after patients have left the hospital.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2013/06/30/another-radiation-source-to-consider-hospital-sewage/
Errors made by Japanese authorities in estimating Fukushima radiation exposure
Exposure data wrong for 16,000 in Fukushima KYODO HTTP://WWW.JAPANTIMES.CO.JP/NEWS/2013/06/26/NATIONAL/RADIATION-EXPOSURE-DATA-INACCURATE-FOR-16000-FUKUSHIMA-RESIDENTS/#.UC0KSDTWO6I JUN 26, 2013 FUKUSHIMA – Fukushima Prefecture and the National Institute of Radiological Sciences have said they erroneously estimated the radiation exposure of 16,118 people in a survey covering the first four months after the outbreak of the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Among the roughly 420,000 people authorities have so far finished compiling data on, recalculations show 12,469 received higher doses and 3,649 lower doses than previously estimated.
The margins for revisions range from plus 0.4 millisievert to minus 0.2 millisievert. As a result of the revisions, it was learned that some people were exposed to more than 1 millisievert — the annual limit set by the government for ordinary citizens.
People polled were asked to answer in detail where they were between March 12 and July 11, 2011. Based on their whereabouts, the institute estimated their cumulative amount of external exposure by adding up daily radiation levels measured at their locations over the four months.
Used as reference were actual radiation readings at a number of monitoring posts in the prefecture as well as projections of the spread of radioactive substances by the SPEEDI computer simulation system.
But in some cases, the dates in the survey failed to match those in the reference data.
Radiation-caused deaths from Chernobyl nuclear accident
Scientific American: Up to 1 million eventual deaths estimated from Chernobyl exposure — Sweden, Finland, others concerned about risk of forest fires near disaster area http://enenews.com/scientific-american-1-million-eventual-deaths-estimated-chernobyl-exposure-sweden-finland-other-european-countries-concerned-about-risk-forest-fires-disaster-area
Source: Scientific American
Author: Jane Braxton Little and The Daily Climate
Date: June 24, 2013
At Chernobyl, Radioactive Danger Lurks in the Trees
For 26 years, forests around Chernobyl have been absorbing radioactive elements but a fire would send them skyward again – a concern as summers grow longer, hotter and drier […]
[…] scientists at several institutions in Europe and North America analyzed a worst-case scenario: A very hot fire that burns for five days, consumes everything in its path, and sends the smoke 60 miles south to Kiev. A separate worst-case study is underway looking at the risks for Sweden, Finland and other European countries heavily impacted by the 1986 explosion.
Women in their 20s living just outside the zone face the highest risk from exposure to radioactive smoke, the 2011 study found: 170 in 100,000 would have an increased chance of dying of cancer. Among men farther away in Kiev, 18 in 100,000 20-year-olds would be at increased risk of dying of cancer. [No mention of those under 20, who are at much greater risk] These estimates pale in comparison to those from the 1986 Chernobyl explosion, which predict between 4,000 and over a million eventual deaths from radiation exposure. […]
See also: 3 million children require treatment because of Chernobyl, many will die prematurely -U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2000
Radiation death ray plot to kill President Obama
Obama is death ray target of Ku Klux Klan nut http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4978215/Obama-target-of-KKK-nuts-radiation-weapon.html#ixzz2XAvBNDjL By PETE SAMSON, US Editor 21st June 2013 TWO men have been arrested over a plot to kill US President Barack Obama with a home-made DEATH RAY.
Fanatics Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, and Eric Feight, 54, were nicked after a six-month FBI undercover operation. Mr Obama was among those said to have been targeted by the futuristic device that would have fired lethal doses of radiation.
Engineer Crawford, a member of the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan, told undercover agents his design was “Hiroshima on a light switch”. He said his plan was to hide the death ray inside a van and park it
near to a target. The device would be activated from a safe distance and according to an
arrest affidavit would “kill human targets silently and from a distance with lethal doses of radiation”.
He said whoever had the device could kill with little chance of being caught, according to the criminal complaint.
Crawford, of Schenectady, New York, said President Obama was on their hit-list because he had let Muslims into the US.
On the day after the Boston Marathon bombing in April he allegedly sent a text message saying: “Obama’s policies caused this.” The two men were investigated after trying to get funding for their plan. Last year Crawford walked into a synagogue and allegedly inquired about technology that could kill “Israel’s enemies while they slept”.
He later asked KKK leaders in North Carolina for money for his machine. Both the KKK and Jewish leaders tipped off the FBI.
Crawford was arrested as he tried to connect a remote activation device to an X-ray machine that undercover agents had given him after making it useless.
Prosecutor John Duncan said: “From our investigation, the device would have been able to emit X-ray radiation that would cause death.”
Shocking new study shows damage from radiation more damaging than at first thought! – Prof.Chris Busby
….This density of events occurring at low doses suggests a mechanism to explain experimental results that show Tritium is a greater mutagenic hazard than ICRP would expect….
Posted by nuclear-news.net
By Arclight2011Part2
20th June 2011
H/t Richard Bramhall ( http://www.llrc.org )
A new review shows the conventional radiation risk model cannot be used to predict health effects of radioactivity inside the body.
On May 22 2013 InTech (http://www.intechopen.com) published a review of evidence that DNA damage caused by inhaling and ingesting man-made radioactivity is having serious health effects. This is the first time such a wide-ranging review of the genetic mechanisms of harm from nuclear discharges has been published in the scientific literature.
The review, by Professor Chris Busby, is entitled “Aspects of DNA damage from internal radiation exposures“
[1]. It is in a book called “New Research Directions in DNA Repair”.
[2] It vindicates the belief that incorporated (internal) radioactivity is more dangerous than predicted by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). Much of the information reviewed has been in the literature for decades but has been sidelined or ignored.
The evidence shows that ICRP’s use of “absorbed dose” is invalid for many radionuclides when they are internal. “Absorbed dose” is based on an external irradiation paradigm and therefore averages the energy of radioactive decays across large volumes of body tissue.
By contrast, some forms of radioactivity expose DNA to high densities of ionisation. The review defines and discusses situations where genetic damage is massively more likely than from external radiation at the same “dose”;
1) biochemical affinity for DNA,
2) transmutation,
3) hot particles,
4) sequential emitters (“Second Event Theory”),
5) low energy beta emitters, and 6) the “Secondary Photoelectron Effect”:
- Some substances (for example Strontium-90 and Uranium) have high biochemical affinity for DNA so a large proportion of what is inside the body will be chemically bound to DNA. For this reason the radiation events associated with them are massively more likely to damage DNA structures than the same dose delivered externally.
- Transmutation, where the radioactive decay of a radio-element changes it into a different element (e.g. Carbon-14 changing to Nitrogen), has mutagenic effects far greater than would be expected on the basis of “absorbed dose”. This has been known since the 1960s but it has been ignored by risk agencies such as ICRP, UNSCEAR and BEIR.
- Hot particles, especially those which emit very short-range alpha radiation, have obvious implications for high local doses to tissue where they are embedded.
- The “Second Event Theory” concerns the decay sequences of some radionuclides which decay to a short-lived daughter. Strontium 90 decaying to Yttrium 90 is an example; the Yttrium 90 has a half-life of 2½ days so the theory is that the first event (decay of Strontium 90) may damage a cell’s DNA which then sets about repairing itself. The repair process is known to be very radiosensitive and there is a finite probability that the second event (the subsequent Yttrium decay) inflicts further damage which cannot be repaired.
Hydraulic fracking causing radiation problem in water
Report says drilling is creating radiation problems in Ohio Ohio,com.By BOB DOWNING June 14, 2013 The FreshWater Accountability Project Ohio (www.FWAPOH.com) today released a report on the presence and dangers of radiation present throughout the horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) industry that is extracting minerals in Ohio.
The report, authored by Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, a longtime expert on radioactive waste management and since 1992, on radiation hazards from oil and gas drilling, details the serious problem associated with bringing up long-buried radium and other naturally-occurring hazards from thousands of feet underground.
The radiation is associated directly with the “hottest” areas of gas and oil productivity in deep shale layers and is an inevitable and burgeoning waste problem.
Resnikoff points out that much of the highly-radioactive solids such as rocks and soils pulled up during drilling, and contaminated muds and sands are cheaply disposed of in municipal landfills in Ohio, irrespective of actual radioactivity content, for 1/100th of the cost of disposal of comparable low-level radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and nuclear power generation in the nation’s three facilities for that purpose.
n Ohio, he stated, “It is evident that environmental concerns are trumped by the economics beneficial to the unconventional shale drilling industry.” Similarly, Dr. Resnikoff identified evidence that the Patriot water treatment facility in Warren, Ohio, which delivers pretreated water to the Warren public water treatment plant, is likely sending radium-laden water into the Mahoning River watershed. “On a daily basis, Patriot does not test for gamma emitting radionuclides and for radium-226,” he observed.
The expert also performed calculations showing that transport of radioactive liquid waste by tank truck greatly exceed federal thresholds which require specific tank design, minimum insurance under federal regulations of $5 million per shipment, and signage to be prominently located which identify the load as radioactive material.
The report notes that all three sets of federal regulations are being routinely violated which means State of Ohio regulations are clearly inadequate for this hazardous material, and possibly illegal…… http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/report-says-drilling-is-creating-radiation-problems-in-ohio-1.405891
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