Fukushima water tested above safe limit (radio-iodine) 2 days ago

[jpak]

http://www.ajc.com/business/fukushima-water-tested-above-877956.html

TOKYO — Radioactive iodine in drinking water was at one point above government safety limits in the prefecture that hosts a radiation-spewing nuclear plant, the Health Ministry said late Saturday after reporting that trace amounts had also been detected in Tokyo and five other prefectures.

The Health Ministry said in a statement that iodine levels slightly above the limit were detected Thursday in Fukushima prefecture, the site of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant where workers are scrambling to prevent radiation leaks. On Friday, levels were about half that benchmark, and by Saturday they had fallen further.

Drinking one liter of water with the iodine at Thursday's levels is the equivalent of receiving one-eighty-eighth of the radiation from a chest X-ray, said Kazuma Yokota, a spokesman for the prefecture's disaster response headquarters.

Earlier, the ministry said tiny amounts of the iodine were found Friday in tap water in Tokyo and five other prefectures. The ministry says the amounts did not exceed government safety limits. But tests on water, which for decades were only done once a year, usually show no iodine.

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[dkf]

1. Can you wash in it then?

[jpak]

2. Not recommended: radio-iodine is pretty insidious stuff - volatile and readily adsorbs to biological

materials.

[FBaggins]

3. Of course you can.

They said it was "slightly" above those levels.

Keep in mind that water-safety limits for radiation are not crafted for emergency events. They're designed for ongoing consumption.

I'm not sure that I said that right. The idea is to pick a level that's low enough that if you consumed it all year long, you still wouldn't get a dose to be concerned about. Using it for a short period at levels just above that line really isn't a big deal. As the article said, if you drank 50 gallons of the stuff you would get about 1 chest xray worth of radiation.

If there were some reason to think that the contamination would continue long-term, the municipal water supply can be modified to take care of it.

They can worry about that once they get an idea what the final contamination rate is going to be (and they have to stop the source of the problem first).

[jpak]

4. I had a GF in grad school that did iodinations - and she was terrified of the stuff

They also had a 125-I spill in that lab that put it out of business for nearly a year.

I wouldn't use that water for anything.

but - he-man types can do what they want to with it.

yup

[FBaggins]

5. The EPA limit here is 4 Bq/liter from what I can find.

So this would pass with room to spare as drinking water here in the states. (from what I could find in a quick search). And those limits are set with LOTS of head room. They want to make sure that if you used the stuff all year round for your whole life, it wouldn't do anything to you.

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/iodine/standards_regulations.html

Doesn't have anything to do with "he-man"... I'm no fan of the stuff... it's just a recognition of how this compares to "normal".

The fact that we can detect something does not mean that we need to fear that thing.

[jpak]

6. This isn't "normal" and it is not safe for young people to consume radio-iodine

yup

[FBaggins]

7. The AMOUNT really DOES matter.

Can we not agree on that?

Of course it isn't "normal"... but these limits are set for a reason (so the public knows that they're safe below that level).

[jpak]

8. IIRC the population of Greater Tokyo is 12 million

Exposing that many people will have consequences.

yup

[FBaggins]

9. Here are the european guidelines that I've found.

The maximum dose for radioactive iodine, according to Euratom guidelines, is 150 Bq/kg or becquerels per litre (Bq/l) for infant food; 500 Bq/kg or Bq/l for dairy products; 2,000 Bq/kg or Bq/l for other foods and 500 Bq/l for liquids intended for consumption.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jkjR9i6W0I6_kyedexGyMAfYKusQ?docId=CNG.4ff2e782ea3c513ce60adb517b709f8e.4b1

I'll keep looking to see if I find something else, but this sure looks like the limit in Europe for drinking water is about 200 times as high as what was detected in the WORST spot (so far) in Japan.

I think they've got a little breathing room before Tokyo needs to worry.

the population of Greater Tokyo is 12 million

What's the population of Canada? Their drinking water averages twice that much tritium all the time.