Group warns EPA ready to increase radioactive guidelines (allowable in water, food, soil)

[TalkingDog]

Read it and weep.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110316/NEWS08/110316027/1969/NEWS/Group-warns-EPA-ready-increase-radioactive-release-guidelines-?odyssey=nav|head

The EPA is preparing to dramatically increase permissible radioactive releases in drinking water, food and soil after “radiological incidents,” according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

What is termed a guidance that EPA is considering - as opposed to a regulation - does not require public airing before it’s decided upon.

snip:

Drinking water, for example, would have a huge increase in allowable public exposure to radioactivity, the group says, that would include:

A nearly 1000-fold increase in strontium-90

A 3000 to 100,000-fold hike for iodine-131

An almost 25,000 rise for nickel-63

The new radiation guidance would also allow long-term cleanup standards thousands of times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted, permitting doses to the public that EPA itself estimates would cause a cancer in as much as every fourth person exposed, the group says.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsiblity
http://www.peer.org/

[enough]

1. I'm weeping, but it's in anger and frustration. (nt)

[RegieRocker]

2. Bull hockey. These guidelines are nothing motte than this is what the readings are

not guidelines.

[flamingdem]

3. Just like the Japanese government and Tepco did, it's a trend

TEPCO - Tell Everyone Plutonium Cloud Overhead

[enough]

4. Another article on the subject. We see now what the US response to Fukushima is going to be.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/03/guest-post-government-responds-to-nuclear-accident-by-trying-to-raise-acceptable-radiation-levels-and-pretending-that-radiation-is-good-for-us.html

[gratuitous]

5. Just change the allowable levels of contamination, and . . .

The problem is solved. Sure, it will suck to be you when you get cancer or radiation sickness or something else, but most of this stuff is stored around poor people, and they're very accustomed to getting the shitty end of the stick. People who live in mansions with staff should be quite safe, so this should all work out very well.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

10. Dilution is the solution to pollution!

This is especially true in the nuclear industry.

[Chef Eric]

6. Change we can believe in.

:sarcasm:

[in_cog_ni_to]

7. Told ya so! Just because a Democrat is in office and has

his appointed leaders running the EPA, makes no difference whatsoever. They are all alike. The Government and its agencies are controlled by the corporations that OWN them.

I'm beginning to think this is a population control issue. Except they probably won't be turning dead contaminated people into food (Soylent Green)....well, maybe though. They could turn the contaminated people into food for the OTHER contaminated people because, after all, they're already contaminated so what's the diff? Think of all the people who won't go hungry anymore. :(

Cancer in 1 in 4?

This is SICK.

[AndyTiedye]

12. More Likely This is an Indication of How Bad the TEPCO Situation Really Is

Those levels are going to become the new "normal" after ALL of the nuclear material at the six TEPCO plants gets blasted into the atmosphere, and there is nothing anybody can do to stop it.

[in_cog_ni_to]

13. I know. And instead of raising the levels to accomodate that,

perhaps warning people of the dangers and letting them CHOOSE how THEY wish to prepare for it, would be the best way to go. Maybe people don't want to accept this new and dangerous "acceptable" level ordered by the NUKE INDUSTRY (1 in 4 will get cancer). Maybe people would like the option of buying water filtration systems or growing their own food or buying shelf stable milk and/or dry milk products, beans and rice. You know....trying their best to fight what's coming? Is the EPA going to tell the masses "we're raising the acceptable levels of radiation to a level where 1 in 4 of you WILL get cancer?" I somehow doubt it. People NEED TO KNOW what they're up against here and this isn't the way to go about it.

[suffragette]

15. + 1,000

[AndyTiedye]

18. How Would Growing Your Own Food Help if Radiation is in the Air and the Water?

Stored food helps as long as it lasts, but plutonium is forever.

If they are raising the guidelines by this much, they must expect the radiation to get considerably worse
than it did while nuclear bombs were being tested in the atmosphere. That actually makes sense, since
there is so much nuclear material stored on the site.

[in_cog_ni_to]

19. We're screwed.

You could MAYBE buy bagged soil NOW, before contamination hits and set up an indoor growing room with grow lights? Start canning everything you can can. Though, that preparation should have been done years ago in order to save enough food for years to come. Buy lots of canned goods too.

You CAN buy 20 year shelf safe beans and rice....there are also prepackaged disaster readiness food supplies that can be bought. Then again, that should be done NOW before it's too late and it's ALL very, very expensive. You COULD vacuum pack beans and rice (remove all air) and store it in garbage cans. That would be cheaper than buying the 20 year shelf safe stuff. Just breathing the air is going to be bad....unless everyone walks around with Hazmat suits on. I do not have an answer for the air. :(

[nc4bo]

21. I was asking this ? the other day and it took a while but I got it. We are so screwed. nt

[freshwest]

8. Anyone who believes the post-Bush EPA, FDA is about saving life on planet Earth, raise your claw.

BTW, this will make the pro-nukers ecstatic. I can hear their keyboards going into overdrive nationwide from this:

"See, you're just hysterical, socialist, treehugging hippies! Nukes are always safe and good, solar, wind and getting off the grid is bad!"

[crickets]

9. Your tax dollars at work. -nt

[suffragette]

11. Important news since so many reports are done from "safe" or "normal" baseline

As an example, the many reports we see now that state x- amount of radioactivity above normal. The higher amounts then become the new normal with amounts that would have exceeded that now being treated as safe/normal.



In looking for more info on this, I came across a post on a UC Berkley Nuclear forum that included links to articles with some specifics on how Japan has done this. Looking at these looks at one aspect of what such change can mean.



http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2162



Looking at those articles:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/80010.html
TOKYO, March 22, Kyodo

Meanwhile, the government's task force to tackle nuclear accidents instructed municipal governments near the crisis-hit Fukushima plant on Monday to ease conditions under which they require people to undergo mandatory decontamination.

A radiation level of 100,000 counts per minute will be introduced as a new standard for decontamination, up from 6,000 counts per minute, the government said, adding that raising the bar will not endanger health.

The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the decision was made based on advice from domestic nuclear experts and the International Atomic Energy Agency.


http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81216.html

TOKYO, March 26, Kyodo

By March 24, about 88,000 people have been screened, they said. Of them, 98 showed readings of over 100,000 counts per minute -- a yardstick level that requires ''decontamination'' procedures.




How many of the 88,000 would have received decontamination under the guidelines from just a week previously?

[Renew Deal]

14. That's the way to solve the problem

Just move the goalposts.

[in_cog_ni_to]

16. Indeed. New game rules.

This is wrong on so many levels.

[Junkdrawer]

17. So much for "This is only a Japanese problem". n/t

[nc4bo]

20. WTFF?! They can't be serious - this is from The Onion, right?

:wtf::wtf:

[Junkdrawer]

22. That debate we've been having about "Threshold Dose" vs. "Zero-Threshold Dose"....

is extremely important and is, not to be too dramatic, life or death.

Many reputable scientists think Chernobyl caused 170,000 deaths in North America alone. Many industry supporters think only 60 Russian children near Chernobyl died. Quite a range.

[Kip Humphrey]

23. works for me provided they drop the average life expectancy to 38 years.

[Junkdrawer]

24. Kick

:kick:

[Junkdrawer]

27. ,

[Rex]

25. I thought Ronald Reagan gutted the EPA and filled it full of politicians.

The same thing Bush did to public education - gutted it and now working on filling key positions with politicians. So, what do these numbers mean, obviously you cannot just magically raise the numbers and say they are 'safe'...doesn't work for heroin and it won't work for radiation.

[ReggieVeggie]

26. They should call it what it is, the CPA

the Corporate Protection Association

[Thunderstruck]

28. THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT!!! THE RICH CORPORATISTS ARE KILLING US

WITH THEIR POISONS AND THEY CHANGE THE GODDAMNED RULES AS THEY FUCKING GO!

THIS HAS TO STOP. WE HAVE TO END IT NOW!

[dixiegrrrrl]

29. What kind of air do the rich people breath???

[felix_numinous]

30. Here is one link explaining radionuclide removal

from drinking water http://www.waterfilters-camping-water-purifier.com/radionuclide-in-water.html

It cannot hurt to be well informed. Any additional information from specialists on this subject would be appreciated.

[Raksha]

31. If the EPA wants to totally destroy whatever is left of its credibility,

they are going about it the right way!

[snot]

32. K&R'd.