[R. Cromack] Radiation levels increasing at Fukushima Dai-ichi?

Tepco is the only source of information on the situation at the plant, the rest of the organizations just republish their data. It would be insane to trust Tepco, but I don't think they have been caught doctoring the data yet. Their analyses of that data, however, have been proved wrong.

Bill, you're quite welcome, and I REALLY appreciate all the continuing efforts that you and several others here are making to not only inform yourselves and make responsible decisions for you and your own families, but to share the information, questions, and opinions you have assembled with the wider world of BRAWM / UCBNE Forum posters and readers. A real community has taken root, here, and as I've said before, it's a truly remarkable thing, a demonstrably "democratic" association of concerned citizens uniting against the overwhelming silence, ignorance and mis- or disinformation that dominates the media and Internet landscape with regards to this ongoing nuclear event.

You made quite a few points in your post, and unfortunately I won't be able to address them all at this time. I do want to say a couple things, however, while your good words are fresh in my mind.

I, myself, started drinking milk and consuming milk products again a few weeks ago -- although there has been a real lack of milk testing here in North Texas, with just the results of just the two samples (apparently, only testing for I-131) published by the EPA, the fact that they were both "non-detect"s, I suppose, emboldened me -- plus, I was feeling pretty deprived after six weeks or so. I am still avoiding spinach and other large-leafed vegetables when possible, am drinking filtered and bottled water when available, and have refused to eat any strawberries since Berkeley's first results as far as that product goes became available.

I have abandoned my once-daily routine of drinking a double shot of fresh wheatgrass from Jamba Juice, which I've long held to as a hedge against cancer. I don't know when I might start back up again. Other than that, my diet is largely back to normal, although I continue to avoid crab, salmon, and tuna. I have no plans to resume eating those foods, frankly, ever.

However, like you, I am largely reassured. Also like you, I am refusing to let my guard down.

As I understand things, at this point the likelihood of re-criticality is somewhat slim, owing as much to TEPCO's recently (nominally) successful efforts to keep the reactor cores and spent fuel pools cooled, as the likelihood that a SIGNIFICANT fraction of Reactor 1, 2, and 3's POTENTIAL radioactive output, HAS ALREADY BEEN SPENT / RELEASED INTO THE GENERAL ENVIRONMENT. This is at best a Pyrrhic victory -- we're in less danger of a meltdown now, because much of what COULD melt down, already HAS. The flip side to this is that a simply enormous amount of radiation is now out in the world, free to move and migrate and contaminate and kill at its own speed. I believe that as much as 95% of that radioactivity is in the Pacific Ocean at this moment, though I admit I have no figures to back up that assertion.

I have been pretty encouraged by the videos of the Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool, and by recent hypotheses that much of that area's radionuclides may have, in effect, been transported into that area from an adjoining reactor's casualty. However, I remain deeply concerned about Reactor 3, especially, and I wonder why there isn't more media coverage and honest discussion about that reactor's recent temperature variability.

I don't know what to make of the online assertions that Reactor 4's superstructure is leaning and may be on the verge of collapse. I'm inclined to think that this is (perhaps well-intentioned) paranoia; I simply cannot believe that TEPCO and all the recovery personnel on-site would simply stand by and watch without comment as an entire reactor building slumped slowly into ruin. However, the list of "impossibilities" grows shorter, I find, with every passing week as it becomes clear that there is simply no level of dishonesty, misinformation or outright duplicity and deception TEPCO's governing personnel will fail to stoop to.

I don't know what to make of all the recent revelations and theories concerning our own nuclear industry's long-standing environmental challenges. I am happy to admit that I have spent my entire life totally oblivious to what now appears obvious. Ignorance was, indeed, bliss. However I will just say this for the moment: ANY "absolutes" this side of Heaven are the direct progeny of at least one of three things: Stupidity, deception or madness. So-called "safety records" of highly challenging and potentially disastrous technologies very much included, and we are fools to take them at their word. We are, as a species, dancing on the edge of a cliff with nuclear power; and I have not forgotten that the famed Wallendas, expert athletes and phenomenally experienced though they were, were ultimately unsuccessful in their efforts to defy the laws of physics and the limitations of their own bodies.

Your "watchtower" analogy is more apropos than you might realize; "All Along the Watchtower" happens to be one of my very favorite songs, and I've actually been listening to it quite a bit, lately. Do you know the words?

"There must be some kind of way out of here," /
Said the Joker to the Thief; /
"There's too much confusion -- /
I can't get no relief!"
Businessmen, they drink my wine, /
Plowmen, dig my earth; /
(But) None of them along the line /
Know what any of it is worth.

"No reason to get excited," /
The Thief kindly spoke; /
"There are many here among us /
Who feel that life is but a joke!" /
But you and I, we've been through that, /
And that is not our fate -- /
So let us not talk falsely, now: /
The hour is getting late.

All along the watchtower, /
Princes kept the view, /
While all the women came and went; /
Barefoot servants, too -- /
Outside in the cold distance, /
A wildcat did growl -- /
Two riders were approaching, /
And wind began to howl.

"Two riders were approaching," indeed, my friend. And I, like you, am manning the battlements, listening to the rising wind.

Speaking honestly, then, I have no idea -- zero -- what the "ramifications" you allude to will be. It SEEMS as if there should be some, certainly, for Japan, and I would imagine here as well. But the BRAWM / UCBNE folks, and many many others besides, have repeatedly insisted that although STATISTICALLY there will be increased probabilities of long-term disease for North American populations, such deviations from "normal" incidences of cancer and other syndromes are so minute as to pose virtually no discernible threat to us, even in the aggregate.

This -- BRAWM / UCBNE's position -- has been, frankly, a hard opinion for me to swallow, but I must admit that I have nothing save some barely understood facts and figures, the long-held indictments and alleged prophecies of a host of perennial doomsayers, my own limited notions of science, statistics and sense, and a vague, scarcely definable disquiet, to stand against it. The cold, hard, occasionally difficult truth is that an overwhelming majority of ACTUAL experts in a variety of scientific disciplines and public-health fields agrees that the threat of Fukushima to populations in the northern hemisphere OUTSIDE the immediately affected area in north central Japan are minimal to negligible at most, and fantastic to imaginary at least, with most lettered experts increasingly lining up in the "fantastic to imaginary" category. We who continue to stress about increasingly nominal exposures and dosages and their associate risks are very much in the minority. There can be only two explanations: Either THEY'RE right, or WE are. Personally I feel better assuming that they are, because if I, a liberal-arts major who took two and a half years to pass high school Algebra II and never made higher than a C in a college-level science course, know better than nuclear engineers, radiological medical professionals, industry experts, and governing and regulatory agencies, then we're in more trouble as a species than merely having three nuclear reactors melt down in a single year and at a single location. We're a lot of f---ing idiots, frankly, and we're living out Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" as we speak, if THAT's the case.

...But am I convinced? No. Not by a long shot; it is hard to be convinced by any argument that fails to provide anything in the manner of correlating data or comprehensible explanation. And with the deafening silence of virtually EVERYBODY supposedly "in the know", reassurances and calming statements and platitudes have had, as far as I'm concerned, the opposite effect entirely -- It's like taking your car, which is rattling and shimmying and puffing smoke, back to the dealership and being told, "Oh, yeah, that's normal" and getting no explanation whatsoever. Matter of fact, it's EXACTLY like that.

In all this, the ONE bastion of concern, diligence, transparency, communication, and respect of the general public has been the BRAWM team. But, you already know this. I hope I don't offend them when I say, however, that it's not enough. They are, as I have said before, what every industry, every company, every agency, every regulatory body, every advocacy group, every educational or research institution, every government, SHOULD be -- and aren't. It's not that the folks from the University of California - Berkeley Department of Nuclear Engineering are so far removed from the standards we ought to expect of them -- it's that no one else is making even the slightest effort to uphold those standards. They are a rarity -- a singularity -- because they're doing what they ought to be doing -- and no one else is.

That's pathetic, folks. In all the world, of all the nations, out of all the people with knowledge and experience and power and responsibility, it's this single, lonely college that alone gives a damn. We should be ashamed, as a nation, as a society, as a species.... And ANGRY. I certainly am.

"Faith will move mountains... But bring a shovel anyway." That's my new motto, my friend. I just wish I could put the shovel to work immediately, instead of spending so much time and effort simply trying to move the bulls---.

Keep doing what you're doing. Everyone reading this, do the same. There are mountains to move, yet... And we are the people who WILL move 'em. Don't be intimidated by that; be determined, and resolute, and proud, and let's get 'er done.

Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas