Japanese Radiation Floats Over Florida’s Crystal River Nuclear Plant. Expect the unexpected.

[ensho]

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2011/03/28/japanese-radiation-floats-over-floridas-crystal-river-nuclear-plant-expect-the-unexpected/


-snip-

So yes, Americans have their doubts because they are not able to trust all the information that is being disseminated, and because the language is often so ambiguous.

With that in mind, here’s what we learned today from Sunshine State News:

Progress Energy reported detecting “very low levels” of radioactive Iodine 131 in the air over its Crystal River nuclear plant on Florida’s West Coast.

As one of my favorite regular sources for great linkage and commentary, Hugh Kaufman, senior policy analyst with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response noted, “‎Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee, eh?”

The spokesman for Progress Energy confirmed that, yes, it was the result of nuclear leaks at the Fukushima plant in Japan, but that it did not pose a health threat. I’m sure they’ll “expect” no health threat from these areas, either:

A news release from the utility stated that similar readings were expected at the Harris plant near New Hill, N.C., and the Brunswick plant near Southport, N.C., in the coming days.

-snip-

So. Here we are. Trusting (or not) the information we’re getting about potential health issues, which hasn’t always been as reliable as we would like.

As I write this, I am hearing that radiation has now gotten into the ocean food chain, per Paul Gunter from BeyondNuclear.org on the Thom Hartmann radio show. But we probably shouldn’t expect any problems from that, either.

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the Barons who profit from cancer won't have enough pockets to stuff.

[SoulSearcher]

1. Crystal River - Beautiful spot

Famous for the majority of the remaining Manatees to winter
near the warm water coming from the Power Plant.

[adigal]

2. I am surprised it is over the east coast already

From what they told us, there was very low radiation until a few days ago?? I cannot imagine they would lie to us???

[lapfog_1]

3. If the level wasn't "safe"

what would we do? What would happen?

And that explains the continuing skepticism over these reports.

[CoffeeCat]

4. What ARE the levels?

The latest reports that involve radiation from Japan--in the US--we hear that "the levels are safe".

What ARE these levels?

Can we see some numbers?

Jebus. We need a Geiger counter posse to verify that they're not lying to us.

Wouldn't want to step on the toes of Big Energy, now would we?

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Very low levels of radiation detected.

In practice any increase above the normal background radiation level is detectable, and the presence of isotopes like I-131 even more so since I-131 doesn't occur normally. It would probably be helpful if they actually announced what the levels were. The UK Health Protection Agency has released the readings for radioactivity from Japan that was detected at monitoring stations in Glasgow and Oxfordshire. The peak radiation level detected was 300 micro-becquerels per cubic metre. To put that into perspective: a micro-becquerel is one millionth of a becquerel, the SI standard unit for measuring radioactivity; the Japanese safety limit for drinking water is 300 becquerels per litre (in Europe it's 500). So the detected level was one millionth the "safe" limit of radioactivity. In other words, very negligible.