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EPA to raise "safe" radiation contamination limits

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Friday, April 26, 2013 06:15
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Friday, April 26, 2013 6:15 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

The EPA is at it again, they now want to change the "safe" limits of exposure to humans. The EPA wants to raise "Protective Action Guides" (PAG's) to levels vastly higher than those at which they are currently set allowing for more radioactive contamination of the environment and the general public.

"According to PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the new standards would drastically raise the levels of radiation allowed in food, water, air, and the general environment. PEER, a national organization of local, state, and federal employees who had access to internal EPA emails, claims that the new standards will result in a “nearly 1000-fold increase for exposure to strontium-90, a 3000 to 100,000-fold hike for exposure to iodine-131; and an almost 25,000 rise for exposure to radioactive nickel-63? in drinking water. This information, as well as the emails themselves were published by Collapsenet on March 24.

In addition to raising the level of permissible radiation in the environment, PEER suggests that the standards of cleanup after a radioactive emergency will actually be reduced. As a result, radioactive cleanup thresholds will be vastly lowered and, by default, permissible levels of radiation will be vastly increased in this manner as well."


http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2162
According to one estimate, the new limits will change the allowable death rate due to radioactive contamination from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 23. If true, that would amount to just throwing people on the altar of nuclear weapons/ nuclear power without even a pretense of protecting lives. (We would never have nuclear power without the military's need for plutonium.) I'll have to look into that. One comment on this site:

Quote:

I know how we can lower the murder rate. Legalize murder. Overnight the rate of people being arrested for murder will drop to zero. Brilliant! I think I have a bright future in politics.
Indeed!
I can't imagine what would cause this change in policy except an imminent threat or actual occurrence of irremedial contamination. Right now, the most-immediate cause for concern that I know of is Hanford in WA.

Quote:

Underground tanks that hold a stew of toxic, radioactive waste at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site pose a possible risk of explosion, a nuclear safety board said in advance of confirmation hearings for the next leader of the Energy Department... Federal officials have said six underground tanks at the site are leaking into the soil, threatening the groundwater, and technical problems have delayed construction of a plant to treat the waste for long-term safe disposal.
. According to other reports, there is no way to keep the contamination from reaching the Columbia River.

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