Washington State DOH to Begin Seattle-area Aerial Radiological Survey July 11-28
I'm a Seattle-area resident. Despite the Washington State Department of Health’s statement mimicing the EPA’s, saying the fallout here in WA was “minimal” and not a health threat (and thus no recent EPA test results for Seattle drinking water are available for radionuclides since their last sampling done on March 28), interestingly enough, I just happened to discover this bit of news from the WA DOH on their website: http://doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/rep/aerial.htm
As you’ll read, they will begin aerial testing via low-flying helicopters for gamma radiation from cesium and radioactive iodine in the Seattle area from July 11-28.
Although the WA DOH states this testing has nothing to do with testing for fallout from Fukushima, rather they are only testing for “baseline purposes” for existing gamma radiation such as cesium and radioactive iodine in case of “future radiation emergencies” in the King and Pierce Counties of WA, I can’t help but wonder if they may now suspect (or know about) more fallout here from Fukushima than their official statements let on…?
I've posted additional comments on this on Jeff MacMahon's recent blog post "Harm from Fukushima Radiation: A Matter of Perspective" on Forbes: http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffmcmahon/2011/07/09/harm-from-fukushima-radia...
P.S. Keep up the great work, BRAWM and thanks to all the concerned citizens who continue to contribute vital information to this forum.
Washinton Dept of Health studies
As promised below, the Washington Dept. of Health released the conclusion of their studies in March 2012:
http://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/EmergencyPreparednessandResponse/Fukus...
Fukushima Update-One Year Later
Radiation levels in Washington State still safe.
The Washington state Dept. of Health reached the same conclusion that BRAWM has been reporting on this website ever since the early days of the Fukushima accident.
Unfortunately, there are still some that are not interested in supplying the truth to the public who are still making a mountain out of a molehill for their own parochial political interests.
Question re: radiation levels in Washington State
Are the "safe" levels that were detected safe in terms of pre-Fukushima safety levels or post-Fukushima safety levels?
Study will be released feb 2012 keep an eye out...
http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/rep/aerial.htm
Aerial Radiological Survey for King and Pierce Counties
Incidentally, I noticed a
Incidentally, I noticed a couple of months ago that the Govt of Canada was looking for contractors to do aerial surveys by fixed wing and helicopter, including for gamma radiation. I thought that was interesting at the time, as Health Canada removed all mobile air monitoring stations and refuses to make rain monitoring data available or test agricultural soil for radionuclids, as requested by Canadian farmers in the east.
The helicopter will fly a
The helicopter will fly a grid pattern spaced about 600 feet apart at an altitude of 300 feet, flying at 70 mph. The results will be provided to local agencies from the surveyed area by year-end. Some of the data may be withheld for national security purposes. The state Department of Health has been planning this project since 2009.
http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/rep/aerial.htm
It's like closing the barn
It's like closing the barn door and taking a baseline number of cows after all the cows have got out (and waiting so long that maybe a few have wandered back in)
Baseline is the worst word for this I could think of. It will show neither that nor peak contamination, only a mysterious post-Fuku in-between state.
The survey itself? If they release those data to the public, I'll be grateful to have those numbers even if they call them "Safest safeness tool of nothing-to-worry-about and absolute indisputable safety (See, we're totally taking care of you. Bee-tee-dubs, a new episode of American Idol is on.)"
"it's like closing the barn."
couldn't have said it better myself.
Barn
" It began in September 2009"
Barn door was still open then.
Not everything is government incompetence.
government speak
Other than the Aleutian Islands Washington state has likely got the heaviest recent fallout. For hot spots few US locations rival the Hanford region and a few other neighborhoods up there.
A very busy place when it comes to all that stuff. Baseline ? Survey? Something is fishy.
It would 'harm the public good' to 'unnecessarily create alarm' so look closely at the blend of truth and fiction.
Truth:
A survey it truly will be.
Fiction:
Baseline? The only baseline there going to get will be Fukushima PLUS hanford + Boeing + Green River + mil nuke central+general test fallout. Love the Pacific NW but there are places you wouldn't linger given a choice.
OK. Truth mixed with fiction equals lie. A deception.
Then a survey for what. I say already found something amiss and are now in search of it or they are in the midst of a wee experiment, a play with a new rad toy, a demo from one of those black projects.
Of course any high readings will be removed from the released data because it was 'in error'.
I have just scratched the surface.
Re: Government Speak
Isn't it truly a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in, not knowing who or what info to trust about this? :-(
I am hoping the Truth will win out despite all-- not only about the fallout from Fukushima but of the terrible legacy we are leaving countless generations to come from our playing with the proverbial fire called nuclear energy. (As the Bard so eloquently put it: "Oh what fools we mortals be.")
I'm hoping that the growing public awareness about the ever-growing (and ever-lasting, due to millions of years half-lives for some isotopes like Plutonium) nuclear waste proliferation and clean up and storage problems, and the resulting environmental and ethical (not to mention financial) horrors which the N industry has been unleashing upon our world as a result, will create a demand for the truth that simply won't go away...not until the last stone of truth is turned over once and for all...both here at home (North America) as well as in Japan and beyond.
Nothing short of the future of our planet and humanity is at stake.
You claim you want truth..
You claim you want truth..but I doubt you are going to like it when you get it.
Interesting. I wonder if
Interesting.
I wonder if they have an pre-FK data. Of course, if they fly over and find anything over say 20 bq/M2, they won't need pre-FK info to know where it came from.
Thanks for the link.
Re: Interesting
BC: I wonder if they have Pre-FK data too. Given the fact that WA State and its neighbors were unwitting participants in nuclear radiation testing through deliberate releases at Hanford throughout the Cold War, you would assume they would already have done some Pre-FK baseline testing years ago.
Perhaps this is "new" baseline testing to update their old figures? However, how much the public will get to see of the test results is a complete unknown, as the WA State DOH states that some of the data may not be released due to "security" reasons. Doesn't the public have a right to know the truth? Does it really come down to this, "security" trumps the public's health?
How can we make informed decisions about ways to protect ourselves and our families if we don't have complete information about what we might need to protect ourselves from?
They truly think the public
They truly think the public is stupid...I do not think that anyone would waste money doing baseline testing in case of another disaster after a nuclear disaster. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that a baseline after a nuclear disaster is not a baseline! It will be contaminated!!!! And we know it so tell the truth!!!
RE: They truly think the public
I agree. See my replies to comments above.
Because, as TEPCO has confirmed, active fissioning is happening in an uncontained melt through/melt out in Japan, perhaps the underlying reason for conducting this "baseline" testing is so the folks in charge in the U.S. can turn this into a research project and study to see how much of the new fission products continue to make there way to western Washington? As studies have shown, it is the long-term exposure to low level radiation that can prove to be most deleterious to one's health... (I for one am thrilled to see the BRAWM teams latest Non-Detect results, but to get a large enough sampling done to make the results statistically valid for the entire food, air and water supplies for the entire West Coast population is unfortunately beyond the scope of their resources. But I know the residents in Berkeley must be relieved. So thanks again to the wonderful efforts of the BRAWM team.)
And no doubt also fascinating to some will be studies done on the health affects to the general population over the decades to come. However, how many of us wish to be unwitting subjects in such a study? Only full disclosure of these latest test results will give residents the information they need to make informed decisions about whether they should stay put or move, so they could give their "informed consent" to be part of the study...
Wonderful thread- thank
Wonderful thread- thank you
We already have a national water monitoring infrastructure in existence- it's called the USGS Wateralert System. Why couldn't we just add radiation sensors and get 24 hour data like we do for 'specific conductance' 'PH', etc...etc...???
THAT is what we need and it solves the problem long term.
Select California/Water Quality and you get this:
http://water.usgs.gov/wateralert/
Click on a site and that site number when it pops up and then select:
_120 days as opposed to 7
_Select Graph (you can always change it later)
_Available parameter data of your choosing (different sites have different data sets- don't know why there isn't a standard of the most data we can get as there 'should be')
_And you get this:
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ca/nwis/uv?cb_00060=on&cb_00095=on&cb_00400=on...
Wallah! 'Mission to Mars Nuclear Fallout' detection (somewhat) accomplished.
What are we? Dumb?
____________________
Instead, we get more 'Fukushima styled designed failure'.
http://www.doh.wa.gov/Publicat/2011_news/11-105.htm
Helicopter mapping? Static data for ongoing radiation plumes?
Does it take a scientist to recognize that this is 'designed to fail' from the outset and is a complete waste of time and resources?
Are we dumb or are we 'hoping to fail'?