Troubling high amounts of I-131, Radiocesium in French rain, vegetables and milk (from Fukushima)
Troubling amounts of I-131 in French rain, vegetables and milk
Submitted by Bill
This site is in French but if you scroll down the charts are easy enough to figure out:
http://www.irsn.fr/FR/Actualites_presse/Actualites/Documents/IRSN_Bullet...
This shows actual amounts measured by French Nuclear Security Agencies in rain water, air and green vegetables.
These amounts roughly correspond with many of the readings found here at the Berkeley site.
This indicates to me that the plumes are intensely full of radioistopes which will bio-accumulate and the rates of exposure do not seem to be dropping off as long as the plant continues to release radiation into the environment (even as it enters the sea it will eventually evaporate and turn into fog and mist and enter the food chain) even as the plumes travel and drop their mutagenic and carcinogenic radionuclide load on us.
IF levels in France are somewhat the same as levels here it seems to me that the levels are NOT declining but are simply moving and being deposited at relatively similar rates as the gas and particulate matter circles the globe (which it will do again and again btw)
Any thoughts Berkeley folks on why it seems these radionuclides are not really seeming to disperse or dissipate or be diluted as they traverse the globe? Or is there simply SO MUCH radiation in these plumes and in the atmosphere that it will take YEARS before all the radiation eventually falls out of the sky in rain, snow or in the winds?
Or what?
If it continues to bioaccumulate and recircles the globe the work you are doing is critical to measure the amounts so that epidemiological studies can be done. So Thanks!
But please do comment, or weigh in, on the fact that levels in France seem as high as they are here for iodine and cesium in milk, rain and green vegetables.
Updated tests from France are now in
I haven't compared the two reports (the first was for April 2 and this is for April 4th) but it appears levels there for cesium 137 are dropping but iodine 131 is still being found pretty much everywhere (milk, herbs, vegetables, air, rainwater) although they apear to be coming down somewhat.
http://www.irsn.fr/FR/Actualites_presse/Actualites/Documents/IRSN_Bullet...
Once again - the reason I am concerned about this is that the plume has been raining down on us off and on for three weeks now and it is clear that if it has not "rained out" before reaching Europe that our levels here on the East Coast (like San Francisco and the rest of the country) are still much higher than "normal" and it is pretty clear the rain is bringing much down on us still.
However, I am breatjessly awaiting new results for rainwater and milk and produce at Berkeley to see if they are dropping there (as I expect they will drop here and it is supposed to rain all week so I REALLY nned to get an idea of what is still out there as most models are projections based on serious emissions into the atmosphere (explosions and fires) which seem to have subsided in Japan for the last week or so.
I used your link to look at
I used your link to look at the French values, and it is plainly evident that their measurements are significantly lower than the ones reported here.
I encourage anyone who is concerned to look for themselves, but, for example:
In Orsay, which has some of the higher readings, there was a reported level of rain water (l'eau de pluie) Cs-137 of .11 Bq/L (on April 2). The UCB team recorded a rain water level of .46 Bq/L of Cs-137 on March 27. (That is over 4 times higher, no?)
For I-131, the rain water level in Orsay, France was 1.27 Bq/L on April 2. Here, on March 27, the I-131 level was 1.56 Bq/L. This is the second-lowest reading on the whole chart, with values the previous week going above 20 Bq/L. There is nothing on the French chart that is anywhere near as high.
I would like to encourage people to be a little more responsible with claims they are making on this site. Also--double-check your own conclusions before you let yourself start to panic. Letting yourself get freaked out is not going to help anyone, and in fact can cause harm if you share misleading claims that will needlessly alarm others. Let's try to stay rational.
Well, since I am near NYC, I am not assured
What these numbers mean is that they are close enough in France to be compared to the Berkely readings and they are not that far apart.
What THAT means is that the higher levels are spreading and dispersing and are in air, produce and water in France at fairly significant levels --- not the same or as high as California but in the same ballpark with radionuclides which have a pretty short half life and others that have a long half life-- and thus the fallout was relatively uniform, though diminishing, as it crossed the country in clouds and concentrated in rain, milk and produce but was very low in the actual air when it reached Europe but was still pretty high in water, milk and green veggies.
THAT means that as these clouds rained on the NY area MY fields and local milk and produce and organic farm produce locally all got dosed with unsafe amounts (since there is no low dose threshold for potential risk and harm and thus NO increase is "safe") of radioioidine and cesium and probably strontium and numerous other emissions.
That means my kids are getting dosed as the radioactive Fukushima rains/snows pass from Berkeley to France going right over my house and woods and fields in amounts too high for me to find "acceptable".
It is an assault, a crime against me and my family and kids and community and an insult to our health.
What these numbers show is that relatively high levels are spreading out into a fog or mist with rain and hail and the fallout is coming down on us and it IS carcinogenic and mutagenic and can cause stillborns and birth defects and can give us other folks deadly cancer.
The levels are close enought o extrapolate that high amounts are in the atmosphere and when it rains it is concentrated and is absorbed into milk and veggies and our wells and reservoirs.
It is an international crisis and a crime against ALL humanity. Yes the Japanese are getting hit hardest and will suffer the modst, but we are getting their fallout on our kids too.
Partner...
...you're preaching to the choir, with me at least. I am getting MAD. (Much good it will do me.)
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
www.facebook.com/lonestarplano
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
972-746-8575
Link doesnt work
Link doesnt work
you have to cut and paste it
it works for me
if anyone else has trouble with it let me know
For those who cannot quite figure out the French
I wanted to lay out what is reported here in the French report.
The air (aerosol/gaz) has minute quantities of radiocesium and radioiodine BUT the rian, milk and vegetables seem to have comparable levels to what Berkeley is finding or not too far from it. The milk and rainwater is measured in Becquerals per liter and the veggies Becquerels per kilogram.
Leche = Milk
Vegetaux/herbage = vegetables
Eaux de pluis = rainwater
Scroll to the bottom and you can see the actual measurments from all over France. The amounts in the air are very small compared to the amounts in the rain, milk and veggies.
Well.
I'm not ready to "give up" on my (relatively worthless, I admit) family's "preventive measures" -- like not buying meats or produce readily identifiable as coming from the West Coast or, now, Idaho -- but, if this trend continues, the bottom line is: Unless you've got a Glenn Beck "Armageddon Box" containing EVERYTHING you and your family are going to need for a year or more, there's not a whole lot any of us can really do to keep from getting dosed, more or less.
We all need to eat, and drink, and breathe, and live in the world. If what's coming is eventually going to go EVERYWHERE and into EVERYTHING... Sure, I'm trying to buy a charcoal-filter system for my house, now, and I'll look into iodine and other OTC or doctor-prescribed supplements... But it's not as if I can go to a restaurant and ask what farm their Chicken McNuggets came from, and what the radiological load is today. I can barely find nutritional information, after all. Neither am I confident that our local reservoirs are being tested... And even if they WERE, what can we do about it? Not drink water?
I'm rapidly going through stages of dealing with this all, I suspect: fear, anger, despair, and now I think I'm getting close to real acceptance. (Maybe I'll be trying "bargaining" by late this evening.) Truth is: We're ALL going to get what's coming to us, to greater and lesser degrees, sure, but that's more likely a function of location and day-to-day weather patterns (that can barely be relied upon, anyway, and who knows how accurate computer models of particulate distribution are, anyway?), and very likely a good bit of luck, than ANYTHING we can do individually. So you do all the research and find organic produce grown indoors from a protected water source. It's not like there's EVER been false advertising, right? To say nothing of benign negligence, happenstance, or just plain stupidity. Planning to avoid this to any significant degree seems at this point nearly as pointless as trying to map out a path that carries you between the raindrops so you don't get wet.
This is just the world we live in now, and we're all going to have to adapt. Some will be more fortunate than others. Some parts of the world will be better-insulated than others, in the short term, anyway. Over the course of decades, though: We will, all of us, need to adjust to a "new normal": Higher (perhaps vastly higher) levels of "safe" background radiation, perhaps significantly higher incidences of cancers and disease, to say nothing of human life spans, successful birth rates, defects, congenital medical conditions, and the like. (It's possible NONE of this will happen, of course; this is ALL conjecture. We are in uncharted territory here; nothing like this has ever happened before. We are writing the NEW book on radiological emergencies, nuclear disasters, disease, pathology and morbidity, health care... How's it feel to be a test subject, folks?)
Sorry for the bitter tone. No offense to the folks who work in this field -- certainly, not the staff at UCB, much less the poor sods at Fukushima, many of whom may give their lives for their choice of professions -- and realizing that I AM A HYPOCRITE here, having been an incredibly vocal and vociferous advocate of nuclear energy, as well as nuclear weaponry, for my entire thoughtful like... But I wish this genie'd been kept in the bottle, and that the Nuclear Age had NEVER dawned. And I say that in spite of all the good I know it's done, and will continue to, in fields such as medicine, high-technology, etc. I just don't think it was worth it anymore. Of course, that's just because it's affecting ME and MINE, now... Which makes me all the more pathetic, self-interested, and hypocritical. I accept it all.
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
www.facebook.com/lonestarplano
Rick et al - here's how I see it
First, the fact is that the French results show that the amounts in the air are very much diluted compared to amounts in water, milk and produce RIGHT NOW.
as time goes by the amounts of radioiodine will diminish ( a few months) and the measures I am using for me and my kids (swabbing on a patch of povodone iodine) includes simply avoiding the things we KNOW will have heavy concentrations of radioiodine and other elements right now as the worst loaded plumes "rain out" (milk, fresh produce, primarily).
MANY foods are plenty safe for now such as apples, potatoes, produce from the southern hemisphere, dry goods such as beans and rice (packaged before the plumes).
Eventually, in a few months, I espect that the cesium and other elements will rain out and eventually the rain will clean up and wash the radioactive elements out of the soil (or at least dilute them considerably).
For older folks the odds of harm are pretty slim but for kids precautions will continue to be important.
Knowing WHERE the plumes have gone most intensely is critical to figuring out where to get the things yo9u most want to feed your kids.
For example bananas and tropical fruit will likely be much safer fresh produce if from southern Mexico and the tropics than from California and Florida.
Stocking up NOW on things like raisins and almonds etc will probably be smart as the next harvests will contain, I would estimate, much higher rates of cesium etc. for the coming season. Most produce on the shelves now is probably not too bad at all if from Mexico and if they are from greenhouses they will be much safer as the water used will be much diluted and little or no rain will have fallen on them.
I just pretty much decided that I am unlikley to grow crops outside this year.
FROZEN foods are probably the safest bet and have much smaller amounts of chemicals and risk of exposure if they are from last season.
You don't need to buy huge amounts of beans and rice but certainly buying dry goods NOW will be safer than waiting six months or so imho, and you can get good quantities of rice and beans and can grow food indoors for fresh produce. While tap water may have some of the radionuclides they will be greatly diluted compared to rain-fed produce.
Before too long the rains will be safe again and as time goes by the foods wil get safer and safer.
As for seafood, seaweed, etc, the iodine will be all gone in a few months. Hopefully testing will be undertaken with ALL seafood, produce, etc so we can make informed decision where radiocesium, etc gets most bioaccumulated in foods.
Unfortunately you are correct that while the amounts will not be eliminated they WILL eventually disperse and be reduced.
I mostly worry for my kids who will require discipline not to eat things that are likely to ultimately have more radionuclides than I am comfortable with (ice cream, for example). Again - radioiodine will be mostly gone from the environment here in the US in a few months (three or four) but other radionuclides will not.
So REDUCING the exposure as much as possible is the key over the long term --- primarily for kids, young women of childbearing age, pregnant women, etc.
Some may feel that these amounts are too little to be of concern. But as a parent, I disagree. So the more info we have the better.
We do have to accept some degree of likelihood that these amounts of cesium etc are here to stay. But they have been since nuke tests and nuke reactors were built everywhere.
The MAIN thing we can do with this knowledge is use it to SHUT THEM ALL DOWN ASAP, find a solution to the waste, move to 100% renewables as a goal in the next generation. THAT will be the path for all of us who care about the world and want this to NEVER AGAIN occur. It is a Holocaust.