EPA - Hello?
Can anyone explain why it takes so long for the air filter results from EPA to be published?
I know analysis takes time, but c'mon.
Also, has CDPH quit testing? They had been posting weekly reports. The last one is dated 5/27...
BC
Search
The EPA is still monitoring air
The EPA is no longer posting results to the Japanese Emergency web page. They will report their results to their Envirofacts database where you can retrieve the results via the link below. From what an EPA rep posted to this forum, they will not post non-detects to that site. If nothing was detected, you'll only see the results for the beta analysis. If they detect something, you'll see the result for the specific radionuclide that was detected. When using the query, if you are not interested in any specific isotopes, be sure to leave "Analyte" criteria blank. That way, you'll get ALL results for whatever area and time frame you specify.
I don't know what the Calif Dep. of Public Health's plans are. Given that they haven't detected anything in the air for two months, they may have dropped testing.
Link to EPA Envirofacts Customized Search
Depressed
Now I am depressed. Thanks for the EPA link but I couldn't work out their very complicated webpage. I am not a scientist and my brain is fried with low level fallout but all the same, this seems unnecessarily baffling. Would love to hear from any non-nuclear scientists who get any info from it.
It's not as difficult as it looks
Believe me, I'm no scientist and I was overwhelmed when I first looked at it.
The *only* things you need to select in the page are the following:
Medium (Air-Filter, Air-Charcoal, Drinking Water, Pasturized Milk, Precipitation, Surface Water, any combination these, or don't select any and get them all)
City
State
Or skip city and state and just select a region number (region 9 is the west coast)
Analyte (Iodine-131, Cesium-137, etc, or don't select any and get them all)
Date Range (the time frame you want to get results from)
Then go to the bottom of the page and click on the "Search Database" button.
You can ignore all of the rest.
You can ignore all of the rest.
Thanks VB, lovely
Thanks VB, lovely explanation, but it won't give me any results at all. I get
Total number of records returned from your query: 0
Number of Records shown on this page: 0
plus a lot of mad computer gobbledegook in the box.
but maybe I am looking for too recent stuff (in the last week). or maybe it thinks I am a terrorist because I live in Europe ):
Play with it a bit
You can start off by just picking California and nothing else. It will return a long report. You can then go back and refine your criteria to be more specific.
I doubt you'll find anything for the last week. For air, they supposedly send two filters a week to the lab. But, the report time could be a couple of days to a week or more later. I just ran a report for San Francisco, Calif. for 06/13/2011 to 06/20/2011 and got two results.
Good luck!!!
it worked!!!
Wonderful, got it, thanks VB. But the results are concerning. I ran the same Cal search you did and all they are monitoring for is gross beta. No radionuclides at all???! Not in air, precipitation, or food. Does this worry you all?
No, it doesn't worry me
Based on what an EPA rep told me on this forum, I'm not worried about the lack of results for specific nuclides. From what they said, it looks like they use the beta measurements and other analysis to determine if they need to proceed with looking for specific nuclides. If they don't see anything in their initial analysis, they don't look further and there is nothing to post to the database. So, all you'll see is the gross beta results and that's as far as they went for that sample.
Link to the post from EPA rep
There are additional comments from the EPA rep before and after the comment above that has some useful info.
Hey VB. How do you BOLD?
Hey VB. How do you BOLD?
Formatting Tips Page
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/filter/tips
Thank you! So is this your
Thank you! So is this your second job now?
Starting to feel like
It takes so much time to just learn this stuff, it's literally like a job.
EPA Regions And Codes
For anyone that wants to search by region, you can find the list of regions and the associated codes in the following link:
EPA Regions And Codes
VB- Yeah, it took me a while
VB-
Yeah, it took me a while too, but I have a handle on using envirofacts now.
I have learned so much about this stuff in the past 3 months, it makes my head hurt.
I hear you
Just when I thought I knew how it worked, the EPA rep showed me I didn't :-)
yes, same in Europe
The Irish Radiological Protection Board stopped testing in May, in spite of the fact that they were testing very regularly for years prior to Fukush!!! The Brits stopped testing same time as the EPA and their next testing will be in July. It stinks. I am not sure why we would continue to support these people with our taxes or what they do all day. Are they sitting on a beach somewhere in the Southern hemisphere?