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Seattle Residents Exposed to 10 Radioactive "Hot Particles" Per Day
As I have previously noted,
small particles of radiation - called "internal emitters" - which get
inside the body are much more dangerous than general exposures to
radiation. And see this and this.
Nuclear
expert Arnie Gundersen told CNN on Monday that residents of Seattle,
Washington, are breathing an average of 10 “hot particles” per day of
radiation from Fukushima:
/p>
Hot particles have an affinity for the lungs, and - if breathed in - can cause cancer down the road.
As Gundersen explained in an interview last Friday:
I
am in touch with some scientists now who have been monitoring the air
on the West Coast and in Seattle for instance, in April, the average
person in Seattle breathed in 10 hot particles a day.***
The
report takes some time to make its way into the literature. The
average human being breathes about 10 meters a day of air, cubic meters
of air. And the air out in the Seattle area are detecting, when they
pull 10 cubic meters through them, this is in April now, so we are in
the end of May so it is a better situation now. That air filter will
have 10 hot particles on it. And that was before the Unit Four issue.
Clearly we all can’t run south of the equator to our second homes in
Rio or something like that. But it will stay north of the equator for
anyone who has a Leer jet and can get out. But I guess what I am
advising at that point is keep your windows closed. I would definitely
wear some sort of a filter if I was outside. I certainly wouldn’t run
and exercise until I was sure the plume had dissipated. This isn’t now.
This is, as you were saying, this is worst case. If Unit Four were to
topple, I would close my windows, turn the air conditioner on, replace
the filters frequently, damp mop, put a HEPA filter in the house and
try to avoid as much of the hot particles as possible. You are not
going to walk out with a Geiger counter and be in a plume that is going
to tell you the meter. The issue will be on the West Coast, hot
particles. And the solution there is HEPA filters and avoiding them.
(Audio here.)
Gundersen
also told CNN that Fukushima photos showed steam in March and April
because it was cold. He said that the lack of visible steam doesn't
mean that radiation releases have stopped, only that the warmer air
temperatures mean that releases won't form visible steam.
And he pointed out last week that the White House and Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommend a 50 mile evacuation around Fukushima, yet insist that the U.S. is safe with only a 10 mile evacuation:
White House & NRC Recommend 50 Mile Fukushima Evacuation, Yet Insist US Safe With Only 10 from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
Gundersen also said yesterday:
“So
eventually though we are going to see top of the food chain animals
like tuna and salmon and things like that that have this process bio
accumulates. The bigger fish gradually get higher and higher
concentrations. And I am concerned that the FDA is not monitoring fish
entering the United States because sooner or later a tuna is going to
set off a radiation alarm at some part and people are going to think
it’s a dirty bomb or something like that. So that’s not here yet because
the tuna haven’t migrated across the Pacific. But I am thinking by
2013 we might see contamination of the water and of the top of the food
chain fishes on the West Coast.”
For background on the radiation danger to seafood, see this.
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It has since come out that the amount of particles was overstated by %100. So it's only 5 particles a day, not 10. Not that this makes me feel any better. You can be sure that if it is that much in Seattle, that it is the same on the rest of the west coast, which is hit by the same winds from the northwest area of the pacific (Japan). British Columbia and Alaska also got nailed.
Yea, yea. Radiation, we're all going to die. Yadda, yadda - yahn. I've heard this all before. It's pure weapons grade bolognium. I live in Seattle and I feellllllllllllllllllllllll gkgh gahhhh &^%&*% AHHHHHHHHHHHH
( help me )
you're obviously too smart & informed to be helped, so just continue to lie back 'n' think of england!
...Seattle, they say it's the smartest city. One word defines Seattle in my book, ''WAMU".
It was a nice veiw of the Sound, when it was not cold and raining etc..., had to let it go in April 07, just in time for a nice little gain. Looking back, that gain ain't there now, it's 100% inverted from the top set by the BlackholeDivestment.
Use to look out from the deck and you could see Saint Helens puffing (on a real clear day). Sunset on the Sound was always amazing. Bald Eagles and the sound of Seals barking, was pretty awesome. Mt Rainer is a 14K live buggar too, and riding that 120hp Honda up to Paradise, well, that is the best. The people, well, they were pretty much delusional. Some ass put a Statue of Lennin in Fremont, a hip area North of Queen Anne Hill, to prove the point. I don't think most of the people can afford to live in Seattle, muchless move away.
...looks to me that this is just the start of the great prophetic tribulation and we are all going to deal with it.
P.S. Nice place to visit before you leave. http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/EP1SGHNwZNKe82wfqIsPkw?select=N5mhAJedIsa_V-rOzgts2Q
I love all the Cascade's Area and Puget Sound, used to wander deep into the mountains and forests.
But you are right. It is so cosmopolitan that people are like any huge international hub. No roots.
Thanks GW for your tireless reporting on Fukushima. I really appreciate it.
If people can build nuclear plants and financial instruments that fail catastrophically and yet their only consequence is public acceptance of half-baked muffled apologies or silence and continued employment, pay, and even bonuses - instead of public beatings and hangings - things will only get worse from here on out.
Beater- and hanger-capture established early on.
Humiliator-capture not needed, as they create no effect on target subjects.
Living in Portland, OR....I suddenly feel so safe, good thing I plan on moving out of the country soon...
I was visiting a friend in Olympia WA and I took a geiger counter to the beach for some readings. I don't know crap about what model it was, it was last certified in 1995, I didn't have a stop watch to measure time, but seaweed on the beach made about 20 tick noises in one minute. I don't know what that means but the guy that owned it described that much radiation as "bad." Olympia is located at the southern most end of Puget Sound so there isn't much water movement there, all radiation particles dump into the sound and collect there in the mud.
20 counts per minute is basically background radiation.
I've had a geiger counter logging data continuously since a few days after the Fuk-u-shima clusterfuck, but after a month of more or less "background" readings, I started to understand exactly what Arnie is talking about. Unless you are in a radioactive cloud, a geiger counter isn't going to tell you anything. You rarely if ever see anything above background unless there is a massive release and you are in it. I've seen videos showing folks measuring significant values in Tokyo, but you won't be able to measure anything substantial on the US West Coast because the particles are too dispersed.
On the other hand, if you breathe in 10 radioactive particles per day and they lodge in your lungs, your cancer risk will go up by a large margin. The geiger counter is a fairly weak detection tool and it certainly is not measuring the risk from internal emitters, a point GW has correctly been pointing out to all the naysayers who consistently - and incorrectly - compare it to the radiation exposure from external emitters.
FWIW, for the last three weeks I've had one of the nastiest sinus infections ever. Granted, the Oregon DOT recently sprayed all the roadsides with herbicides (because you can sue the state if you get in an accident because the view was obscured by plants, but you can't if you get sick from the herbicides), but I have a suspicion that Fuk-u-shima has played a part as well. I tasted a strong metallic taste many days in March and April, and I suspect I breathed in a fair amount of whatever was landing around here. (Central Coastal Oregon) Also, it has rained virtually every day since the accident, and it is well known that particles in the atmosphere provide substrates for condensation, so it is not out of the realm of possibility that nuclear particles are contributing substantially to those substrates.
this may seem off topic, but if you live in the PNW you are being aerosoled pretty much daily since last October - persistent contrails, chemtrails, goes by many names, but basically it's a nasty combo of aluminium chaff, barium, strontium, dessicated blood, pathogens, nanoparticles, etc. - where I live we've had maybe less than a dozen blue sky days since last summer, and those are clearly being sprayed, which creates the thick white haze on the following days.
again, I realise many don't want to believe, can't afford to believe this, but there are also many documenting, researching and writing about it as well. . . the "govt." has acknowledged some of the spraying, as "weather modification" - here's a link to the "commercial"side:
http://weathermodification.com/index.php
and if you are prepared to sift through other's research to come to your own conclusions, this is a good place to grab links 'n' go:
http://geoengineeringwatch.org/
the "sinus infection" is classic symptoms, as are persistent lung infections such as pneumonia - I can recommend raw garlic, colloidal silver, and bentonite clay, all good for removing the crap from your system, as best as possible.
today it's sunny here, and I can count 5 trails being laid, 3 planes overhead. . . yesterday was complete white out, and tomorrow we'llbe back to that. . .
You can use a simple Geiger counter to measure Alpha and Beta particles. You only need to put is very very close to the source. You can take a dirty filter from your air-conditioner, put it on the table and put your counter on top of it. The filter will have more particles than the air simply because it was filtering the air for a long time. So you have concentrated source of hot particles. If the filter dirt emits Alpha and Beta, it should give some reading on your counter. Take the difference between background reading and the filter reading. Multiply the difference by 10-100 to have an idea. Your lungs act as the air-conditioner filter.
No argument here. But this whole "distance from the source" matter is at the heart of this entire issue of radioactivity. If it's outside your body, it's one thing. If it's in your body, it's another thing altogether. The force falls with the square of the distance, but the distances for internal emitters are very small.
Cool The readings on the beach were the highest we made. Downspouts were a about 7 ticks per minute, the sidewalk had just 1 or 2. Another friend has a radiation "odometer" device that fits in your shirt pocket like a pen. You look through it like a kaleidoscope and there is a needle and scale telling you how much radiation you have encountered over time. The one in his house hasn't moved, the one he has on his person has moved to 5 since the quake. The 1st rain / hail after the quake made the needle move from one side of the zero line to the other, the first movement he'd ever noticed. The literature that comes with the pen said that a reading of 10 was what a human should encounter over their entire life. I've had a cough for about a week, we'll see what happens.
There have been some rains worse than others. I've seen some movement, maybe 30% max from baseline, but it's mostly baseline. It's curious that the EPA only reported a single measurement from Portland, on March 25, but hasn't reported any other empirical data. Their website, http://www.epa.gov/japan2011/rert/radnet-sampling-data.html#precipitation says:
"Elevated levels of radioactive material in rainwater have been expected as a result of the Japanese nuclear incident. Since radiation is known to travel in the atmosphere - precipitation data collected in several states have shown elevated levels of radiation in recent precipitation events. In all cases, these are levels above the normal background levels historically reported in these areas. While short-term elevations such as these do not raise public health concerns and the levels seen in rainwater were expected to be relatively short in duration-U.S. EPA took steps to increase the level of monitoring of precipitation, drinking water, and other potential exposure routes to continue to verify that. After a thorough data review showing declining radiation levels in these samples, EPA has returned to the routine RadNet sampling and analysis process for precipitation, drinking water and milk."
The interesting thing about this statement is that there is not enough publicly available data to confirm that the levels have decreased. Looking at the Portland Oregon data, there is but one single sample reported, 86.8 pCi/L, on March 25, 2011. Earlier reports here indicate the believed "safe" level is 3 pCi/L. So this one single value was almost 30x the "safe" level. I don't trust the EPA in any way, shape, or form. The USGVT is lying to us, officially.
Fuk u Shima's "the family jewels sparkle syndrome" has a unbelievable side-effect : its kick starts sexual desire incessantly as we all feel we have limited time left. Make the most of it....is what I say to Seattleites.
GE: "We bring good things to life."
doublespeak. classic example, corporate class.
OT, but get ready...the Corexit creature is resurfacing:
http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2011/06/oily_substance_investigated_in.html
think he said five particles in Seattle (still not relieved from the northwest)
GE built the reactors 45 years ago. They should have been decommissioned by now but due to
the poor economic conditions in Japan, they weren't. The mess will take 10 to 20 years to clean
up, depending on how bad it really is when they get to the core.
And now Japan will likely have to spend even more money than they would have otherwise spent in the first place.
Isn't that always what happens when short sighted people cut corners?
Who built these reactors? Are they cleaning up this mess?
Political management, instead of engineering management, has destroyed two great American technologies - nuclear power and manned space flight. Talk on about nukes, it won't matter since the public is too ignornat to direct a proper path....
But as to the other -
For the SECOND time in my life, the US is getting out of manned space flight, and this time without a single solid idea abhout where we're going. When the US junked all the Saturn infrastructure, we destroyed the most reliable and cost-effective (believe or not) booster system of all time. Now, we can debate the junking of a marginal space truck (shuttle), but also idling all the tooling used to build the solid boosters, eternal tanks, and main engines...all great pieces of hardware that could be used to build another highly capable booster (ARES V-ish). But here too, Americans in general are too stupid to direct the path we'll take.
We all have our reasons to just turn on, tune in, and drop out. This is mine. I have thrown in the towel on my careeer as an Aerospace Engineer and now all I do is check PM prices and wait for TSTHTF.
>When the US junked all the Saturn infrastructure, we destroyed the most reliable and cost-effective (believe or not) booster system of all time
If it's as great as you say, how come the technology can't survive on the free market?
How come it can't be funded voluntarily by people exchanging money for the removal of their felt uneasiness; but rather can only be funded by coercively extracting payments through threats of death and imprisonment against people who don't want the rocket and don't benefit one iota from it?
Also, that the rocket has been designed and built is what is seen. What about that which is unseen? What about the goods and capital and technology and knowledge that would have been created if scarce resources were directed by market participants and not siphoned off into this bureaucrat's pet project?
OK, Mr. Libertarian economics: how do you get a project that is pure research funded? A project with no conceivable profit incentive (though with a possibility of important scientific discoveries with unpredictable potential)? Voluntary contributions? Some projects lead nowhere but in being discredited eliminate dead ends. Some projects produce a bounty of new science. Nobody can predict which is which. Such speculative pursuits of knowledge will never be funded by people sending $10 and $20 donations via PayPal.
Oh Noes! We won't have enormous boondoggles that we aren't socially capable of dealing with! All of that capital expenditure that you laud wouldn't have ceased to exist, but would have insted flowed into projects from which the maximum utility would be derived. I'd be totally cool not landing on the moon until the 2200s (as well as not yet having the A-Bomb) if it meant we instead invested in a decentralized power grid and hyper-efficient, low footprint permaculture techniques. Socialization of science is playing with fire; we haven't killed ourselves because of it yet, but we've come too damn close for my liking...
... maybe because the "free market" is not free, in that the means of exchange is dictated and monopolised by the Fed and you (should, if not suffering from protective stupidity,) know who.
Cos Herman von Braun and his kind were not products of a "free market" manipulated by shoddy corporates and shoddier politicians...Are your serious that the MIC technology is "free market"...? At least von Braun believed in his own excellence and " Jawol Mein Fuhrer" ...get things done... quality ethics. American corporate fat cats only believe in their own ass farts and "one hundred dollar toilet seats" paid by the tax payer. I am talking of price tag in the days of the 'sixties' prices when von Braun ran the show...
The Saturn stuff was designed and engineered by Germans. NASA was good when the Germans ran it. Their was no political correctness BS with Von Braun. NASA is like the post office now. We are an emerging third world african nation post 2008 - thanks to libs, idiots and guilt ridden white folks - all morons brainwashed by TV and hollywood.
TO: cpnscarlet
on Wed, 06/08/2011 - 23:05
#1353498
"When the US junked all the Saturn infrastructure, we destroyed the most reliable and cost-effective (believe or not) booster system of all time."
tell us more, cpn, but just the facts, please..................
The engineers didn't make the decision. The government and TEPCO executives pressured the engineers and the geologists gave them the go ahead. TEPCO was saving money by keeping rods in spent fuel pools, just like the US power companies starved for cash thanks to the banker's greed.
We are heading in the same direction as Japan.
And you know this how?
link
Your own words: "TEPCO executives pressured the engineers".
I'm an ex-airline captain and when the airline pressured me to do something stupid I'd tell them - you come down and do it, I'm NOT doing it.
Like I said before, Effing @$$hole engineers, they could have let TEPCO and the government design their own effing reactor and that would be that.
I'm sure you are right, we are hearded for the same mess.
In our debt based money system the confident guys and gals who can add value to life's joureny get to fly planes, 'seduce' their maids and spend other peoples wealth.
The shy guys who can add value somehow manage to make everything possible and/or clean up the mess but tend to get stuck in a trap of compromise arising from their own diligence.
A moral monetary system would no doubt assist the confident to compliment the competent, until then please dont knock the profession that made yours feasible!
Every profession today depends on science. Before the Engineers design they need to know and understand the science of nuclear reactors, and they do. No science has looked into the 'what ifs' because that is money and time. So it remains in the dark. The Fukushima reactor was made to do what it was supposed to and not made to withstand what it was exposed to.
Now that the genie is well out of the bottle we, the world, have a problem. We had better learn from this because indirectly a lot of people are going to suffer and when it comes right down to who or what is to blame it will be seen that the profit mongers (arn't we them?) are to blame.
Very nice reply, and it rhymes.
And you're quite right: the confident often override the competent instead of complimenting them.
Still, there are ethics, and back in the day I learned what engineering ethics means. When peoples' lives are at risk, there is a solemn duty to get it right. I don't have much sympathy for GE or Mitsubishi engineers. They should have known what they were doing, and refused or done what was right and necessary. There are many equivalent examples of the same poor decision-making processes in the US also, so I don't believe the Japanese are all that much different than us, when it comes to unnecessarily placing citizens at risk.
A truly moral system would not allocate resources to any venture that knowingly would lead to death.
At least one engineer did resign because of concerns about the safety of the Fukushima reactor.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-quake-engineer-idUSTRE72E9H420110315
Thanks for the link! It's good to know there are people of conscious out there.
Effing a$$hole engineers with no effing common sense. 600,000 spent rods and 4 reactors on a fault line.
PhD's should HAVE to pass a common sense test before entereing the program.
Yeah okay ,maybe you should do the slightest amount of reserch and you would find the plants survived the earhtquake just fine. It shut down as a precaution. The TSUNAMI took out their back up generators because they were only 20 ' above sea level. If you are going to blame the "effing engineers" it might be nice if you had a clue as to what you are talking about. That being said if the plant hadn't shut down ,they put the generators higher or had a back up power supply coming in from the grid they would still be operating today earthquake or not.
Not the engineers, the bean-counters and their pals in the corner offices.
They should send over the GE execs with a breathing filter, garbage bag, pooper-scoop, and radiation survey meter to pick up Fukushima -- alongside the Tepco execs that were recently issuing tearful apologies on Japanese TV.
You're too kind..
Apparently GE also OK'd the installation of their reactors on the fault thinking
they could withstand a quake. Thanks GE.
"Thanks GE"
+1 !!
Engineers thought the Titanic couldn't sink either.
Remember the slogan, "We bring good things to light?"
Didn't really want it to be my lungs. Thanks, assholes.