New milk results posted
5/9 (10:30pm): Milk measurements are now updated with samples of milk up to a Best Buy Date of 5/9. We have the first non-detection of I-131, and Cs-137 and Cs-134 have both declined.
Mark [BRAWM Team Member]
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5/9 (10:30pm): Milk measurements are now updated with samples of milk up to a Best Buy Date of 5/9. We have the first non-detection of I-131, and Cs-137 and Cs-134 have both declined.
Mark [BRAWM Team Member]
thanks to you all
I am sure you are fed up with people being pathetically grateful by now but I just want to thank you for being (as far as I can tell) the only people who are measuring radioisotope levels and sharing them in a transparent way with the public. You all are the true EPA. Please don't stop what you are doing and if anyone knocks on your door in the night, don't answer it!
At least the BRAWM team is
At least the BRAWM team is doing the testing and the EPA is doing testing. In Canada they won't even give us the results of the tests they have done. They haven't tested the milk since the beginning of April and they only did tests for BC on the west coast.
They say that they will not they will not let us know about the results unless they equal or are able the action level of 1000 Bq/Kg which is really scary.
We are so in the dark here in Canada!
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/imp/domeste.shtml
Not too reassuring with only one milk sample
I too thank you for these new results and obviously no radioiodine detected is encouraging a little.
But with only one new sample posted I am not as reassured about this as I would like to be, especially in light of the variations in the last milk samples.
I noticed to that the declines in radiocesium are very small and are actually close to what you found in mid April and before: this indicates to me that the bioaccumulation is ongoing to some extent and is still ongoing.
With the air results it is good that the evels are tiny, and I wondered if you have an opinion on whether the continued presence of radioiodine is indicative of new releases in small amounts from Fukushima still drifting here (same with the cesium) or whether it is just that the lower results are caused by the decay of the radioiodine due to its relatively short half life?
Onve again thanks for your work and ongoing sampling and I would urge you to perhaps give us some interpretation of these results.
I myself, based on what you have told us and my own research, tend to believe that the radiocesium MUST BE continuing in the food chain (especially the grass that the cows eat) and is also in spinach, strawberries, mushrooms, etc working its way on to our plates and into our bodies where it will bioaccumulate. This is a discouraging trend.
Finally, the Japanese have said that it is difficult to test for Strontium 90 (reporterd on NHK yesterday) yet some very high levels have been found there. IS IT HARD to test for this? The EPA has said that where they see radiocesium in milk or elsewhere that they suspect there MAY be radiostrontium. If cesium is bioaccumulating I am concerned that strontium is as well.
PLEASE comment on the issue of the strontium: is there ANY reliable scientific data that suggests that it is likely or unlikely to "travel with" the cesium you are seeing in your tests.
Need to look at the results for all food chain items
Topsoil has shown a steady decline of I-131. Cs-134/137 have been
steady, which makes sense given their longer half lives. But, that
also shows that nothing is being added. And I *think* relatively
little is taken up via the soil. I believe the grass results show
that.
Grass has shown an steady decline across all isotopes. Which is a
good indicator of what we can expect in milk (as well as beef) going
forward.
Milk had no I-131 detected in the latest sample. And a peak of 1.14
Bq/L. With a relatively clear ramp up to and ramp down from that peak.
It looks like Cs has an a similar ramp up/down, although less pronounced
as I-131. Again, given the longer half lives of Cs-134/137, I don't
think this is/should be surprising. As with the soil, the good news
is that the levels are not increasing. And my *uneducated guess* is that
as the cows metabolism processes out the isotopes. Cs-134 and Cs-137 have
biological half lives of 2 days and 70 days respectively.
Spinach has no detectable isotopes.
Strawberries show no I-131 and Cs is down to .26/.27 for Cs from
an initial level of .71/.72.
Kale has no detectable isotopes.
Arugula has no detectable isotopes.
So, while bioaccumulation can and will occur, it appears it will be
decreasing. And will become less of a concern over the long term. Assuming
nothing more is added to the environment.
Can't speak to strontium as there isn't enough data.
I do NOT believe there's sufficient data yet-not enough samples
I get your drift and it SEEMS as if there is some levelling off and reduction BUT the last results for soil and grass and strawberries were several weeks ago.
We simply do NOT yet know if there are sustained trends for the soil, grass and strawberries and milk (with the exception of iodine 131).
I guess my feeling is that right now I URGE BRAWM to post as soon as possible new tests for soil, grass, additional tests for milk, strawberries, spinach (just to be sure) and other produce.
ONE sample of milk is not enough to feel reassured, especially when the last multiple samples had a fairly significant range of results.
As thr air samples are very low, I agree that it seems as if there is very little, if any, new plume radiation.
But, again, cesium 137 (and strontium 90) have very long lives (300 years or so) and very long half lives (28-30 years) so ongoing tests of the food chain sources are the ONLY way to assess whether additional new contaminants from Fukushima are likely to be bioaccumulating in ME and my kids and loved ones. I NEED to know, as far as is possible, the MOST LIKELY sources of contamination so that I can figure out what is safest and least safe.
Got distracted information gathering....
I didn't finish one comment. I meant to say:
And my *uneducated guess* is that as the cows metabolism processes
out the isotopes (namely Cs-134/137), we'll see those levels in
milk decrease as well.
Milk transfer coeficiency Study three elements in grazing Animal
http://www.lrri.org/heir/Program/HEIR/Presentations/SIMON_HEIR%20TC%20to...
Cs has the lowest TC
Of the three (iodine, strontium and cesium) the study showed that
Cs had the lowest transfer to milk....
More milk transfer study
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1919831/pdf/pubhealthreporig...
Bill it's been here no worries kidding
http://www.stoller-eser.com/FactSheet/Strontium.pdf
Notice to the poster on bioaccumulation educate yourself
Ocean bio
Bioaccumulation – “Bioaccumulation (or bioconcentration) is the uptake of organic compounds by biota from either water or food. Many toxic organic chemicals attain concentrations in biota several orders of magnitude greater than their aqueous concentrations, and therefore, bioaccumulation poses a serious threat to both the biota of surface waters and the humans that feed on these surface-water species.” – Smith and others, 1988
Food bio
Bioaccumulation – “General term describing a process by which chemicals are taken up by an organism either directly from exposure to a contaminated medium or by consumption of food containing the chemical.” – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2010
Source.
http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/bioaccumulation.html
Yeah, its here, and I worry about it as should we all
The radiation and public health project has numerous studies on the harm and its accumulation in baby teeth:
www.radiation.org
But ADDING a NEW load of Strontium 90 from Fukushima would INCREASE the harm and bioaccumulation.
But if NO ONE is testing for it we have no way of knowing if this is an additional reason to modify our diets to try to avoid it and avoid giving it to our children and pregnant women.
I would LOVE to be reassured by BRAWM or ANYONE (EPA etc) that TESTING and SAMPLING demonstrates NO NEW STRONTIUM 90. But I CANNOT GET THAT ASSURANCE ANYWHERE!
It is troubling to me that no one seems to be taking this exposure or potential exposure seriously. I know BRAWM does not have the eguipment, apparently, to test for it and the EPA only did THREE tests in two cities at the beginning (and BEFORE BRAWM was detecting radiocesium in the milk - so if it "travels with" cesium from Fukushima it MAY be here in significant and harmful amounts. It MAY be in the milk and spinach and strawberries in NEW increased amounts.
NOT KNOWING is what is troubling to me. Knowing it is there or is likely to be there lets me weigh the risks of consuming certain foods.
I know BRAWM will say the levels, if any, are probably low and not to worry - but that is NOT a scientific answer: we need the tests and samples and THEN we can assess the risks based on the amounts, if any, detected.
Yes...those are good
Yes...those are good definitions( I am a microbiologist) Just not sure why your questioning the knowledge of those definitions.
Is it possible that you
Is it possible that you don't understand very well what bioaccumulation means?
What? I think Bill's
What? I think Bill's questions are excellent. I would also be curious to know why strontium is not being (or able to be) tested for with the exception of Hawaii's milk samples in the beginning. I think most of us know the meaning of bioaccumulation, but if you have a good definition please share it.
The probable reason why
The probable reason why Strontium in not being tested for (Sr-90 anyway) is that the background levels are still too high from 50 years of atomic testing, that they dwarf the signal coming out of Fukushima.
The EPA had a graph on their site, I can't find the link now, where it showed Sr-90 levels over time and that we are still 3-4x what would be expected from the emission levels from Fukushima reaching the US.
Sr-89, on the other hand, has a half life of around 50 days and is a new signal therefore easy to detect. The low levels found in Hawaii suggest only a small amount is making it's way here, if at all, and that the likely accumulation from Fukushima would only take us back a few years (< 5) in the historical view.
Obviously it would be nice to have a complete inventory of what is accumulating in the environment, but the scale of emissions to reach US territories is not significant enough by all observable data to warrant large counter-measures.
Replying to my own
Replying to my own post:
Here is the graph:
http://epa.gov/rpdweb00/images/incidents/sr-90_blast.gif
From the page here:
http://epa.gov/rpdweb00/rert/nuclearblast.html
No, I know what it means
But I double checked the meaning just to be 100% sure.
It is the accumulation of a substance in a living organism. Organisms include plants and animals (NOT soil, although there are organisms IN the soil in which bioaccumulation will take place such as worms, bugs, bacteria, microroganisms, etc.)
But the fact that cesium is
But the fact that cesium is detected in milk and that the levels detected are going down seems to be a proof that the substance is not accumulating in the living organism in question.
First, it IS accumulating in whatever the cows eat
and entering the cows bodies. How much STAYS in the body, once absorbed, is one factor and how much is passed on to ME and MY KIDS in the food chain is the next factor.
The living organisms I am concerned about are my kids and my loved ones and ME!
It is travelling through the food chain and SOME of it bioaccumulates for the biological half life of the radionculide (how much is another factor).
Somewhere here someone posted the biological half life of cesium 137...
Looking it up I found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium-137
which says:
"Caesium-137 reacts with water producing a water-soluble compound (caesium hydroxide), and the biological behavior of caesium is similar to that of potassium and rubidium. After entering the body, caesium gets more or less uniformly distributed throughout the body, with higher concentration in muscle tissues and lower in bones. The biological half-life of caesium is rather short at about 70 days. Experiments with dogs showed that a single dose of 3800 ?Ci/kg (approx. 44 ?g/kg of caesium-137) is lethal within three weeks."
Scary. That seems like a MINISCULE amount, but my math isn't good enough right now to figure out how that correlates to the amounts we are seeing in the milk. (Are our cats at risk too?)
I am not quite sure how to interpret what the biological half life means, though. If it is dispersed in the cows' bodies and continues to be present in their milk for months and months, this is a serious problem for me. Plus if it is in milk and grass and soil and continues at a "level" amount more or less, then we are getting continued exposure which will be dispersed in OUR bodies.
I think these are fair and important questions to ask right now as is my urging of BRAWM to expedite more sample tests of grass, topsoil, strawberries, and milk, etc.
If my math is correct...
The highest level of C-137 detected by the BRAWM team (0.55 Bq/L) is
255.6 MILLION times below the 3800 uCi/kg that was found to be lethal
in dogs according to Wikipedia.
Someone please check my math.
bioaccumulation
Cesium bioaccumulation (and other isotopes) is an interesting subject. It's not just milk that we consume. It is other milk products, everything else grown in the soil, the water we drink, bathe, and swim in. The air we breathe and the dust we come in contact with.....for years and years to come....accumulating in our bodies. One small measurement alone seems insignificant, but it all adds up. Children are the most affected and vulnerable. Just an example: In one day my kids will each drink 4-5 8oz glasses of milk, eat 20 or so strawberries, have a salad, and eat a couple servings of yogurt or cheese and eggs and beef. This is why continued testing is so important and why MD's and epidemiologists need to be studying the effects of this extra load, and this info made available to the public. Just my opinion.
Agreed
I just posted the number to give some perspective. I can
assure you that, taking biological half lives, FDA and
lethal dose requirements into consideration, your kids
(and mine) will have to consume huge quantities at the
levels we are seeing today. Especially if the levels
continue to decline.
Correction
I'm not an expert. So, I'm not in a position to "assure" anybody.
But, the data sure seems to indidate that.
3800 µCi seem to be around
3800 µCi seem to be around 140,600,000 Becquerels, so maybe your math is correct.
But who knows, maybe the cows eat enough grass fast enough in order for cesium to bioaccumulate like crazy and render milk lethal, which would be very bad for our KIDS and LOVED ONES.
Cows eat a lot
One cow eats 90 pounds of feed a day !!
It doesn't matter how much they eat
If what they eat has less and less contamination, there's
nothing to bioaccumulate and pass on to those higher on
the food chain. And they eat grass. Which is showing lower
levels.
Also, the BRAWM team purposely selected milk from grass
fed cows. That is a worst case scenario. So, I would expect
to see less contamination from regular mass production
dairy cows.
Considering what we are seeing in grass
Remember, we are seeing a clear declining level of all
istotopes in grass. And the BRAWM data clearly shows
the level of all isotopes in the air continues to decline.
Whch is the main source of grass contamination. So, I
don't see how cows will be able to bioaccumlate much of
this in the future. Then it's a matter of waiting for
half lives to clear it out of the food chain.
And to give more perspective, the FDA DIL is 1200 Bq/kg
for the "Cs group" in milk. That's approx. 2200 times the
BRAWM high result. And the FDA DIL is 117167 times lower
than the 3800 uCi/kg lethal dose.
Thank you!
Thank you!