The trailing edges of the thunderstorms usually have higher Fukushima fallout readings, and 10pm this evening was no exception. The family went out shopping and we drove around 6 miles, the last 3 of which were in on and off light rain.
I took samples from the driver's side hood, the nose/grill area, and the passenger hood. The short of it is that the readings are proportional to the surface area wiped. Wiping the driver's side of the hood returned a 7x background reading. Using the same towel to wipe the passenger's side hood returned a 16x background reading
Some more testing may help determine if it is better to main equivalent levels of towel dampness between events, or if it is better to maintain equivalent surface areas sampled (without regard to varying moisture levels). The key take away is that there is an inherent level of variability in these tests.
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Is there anywere in the country where this information is being monitoring and released by authorities, or is everything hush hush now!
ReplyDeleteTo the best of my knowledge, no governmental agency is performing and publicly releasing any sort of surface contamination testing. It IS concerning because this is exactly the type of fallout risk that commuters face (especially motorcyclists and bike riders)
ReplyDeleteI want to take your youtube video at face value, but you filmed the wiping of the car and at the crucial moment, cut and edited the video. The chain of custody, as it were, of the paper towel was broken and the test appears invalid. There are many ways to fake that kind of thing. Can you show an unedited version? I work with environmental regulators who say it is all safe. I'd like to show them your video, but that cut makes it unusable.
ReplyDeleteThe federal drinking water standard for Iodine-131 is 3 pCi/L.
ReplyDeleteThe EPA site shows Portland, Oregon rain water on March 25th at 86.8 pCi/L.
No other measurements taken since then.
This is WELL above the limit? How is this not on the news? Could this be a mistake?
This is also well above other cities, this has me VERY concerned if this is true.
Why is no one inquiring about this? What can I do, who can I call to find out about this?
Christine,
ReplyDeleteThose I131 levels are low compared to to the 390 pCi/L that fell in Boise, Idaho. Fortunately, it does not appear you had the Cesium rain fall that they had in Boise.
I131 has a half life of 8 days. The bigger concern is longer half life fallout like Cesium, it will build up with every rainstorm. Stay out of the rain; keep your pets out of the rain; don't eat the local produce; stay away from dairy products. Get the Premier WP4-V water filter listed under the "Risk Mitigation" widget on the left side of the screen.
It is good to be concerned; to mitigate what you can; accept what you can't mitigate and put it in God's hands. Most people, however, don't seem to be too concerned; and that's called natural selection.
You might try calling or stoping by the local EPA office, talk to the people who did the tests and find out their take on the situation. It might also be helpful to network with neighbors who have similar concerns.
AK Artisan,
ReplyDeleteI do find it a bit humorus that people question an edit that was so OBVIOUSLY done to be open and visible; especially given the TONS of Uranium/Plutonium that went up in Fukushima.
Feel free to check the other videos for more detail viewing of the samples, and various filter tests for Alpha, Beta, and Gamma radiation.
Show the videos to the environmenatal experts you know. If they know their subject, the edit won't matter; if they don't know their subject, an edit would not be required to fool them.
Exactly, I am very grateful that at least someone with a background in this field is willing to communicate with the public on this topic. I have been watching Arnie Gundersen's Videos on YouTube and he mentioned the EPA claims they don't feel it's necessary to monitor radiation in the ocean. Well you know darn well they are going to monitor all the areas of concern and probably not see fit to tell the general public what's going on. At least if the current trends continue!
ReplyDeleteStevenkeys,
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to reply to that in a blog post