Apparently
the 50,000 messages Food & Water Watch supporters sent back in March wasn't
enough to keep the EPA from caving in to nuclear industry pressure. Now, the EPA is moving forward with
a guidance to increase the amount of radiation allowed in your drinking water.
It's not just a slight increase they're proposing. We're talking the equivalent of 250 chest x-rays a year!
The EPA quietly dropped the news on this so-called "protective action guidance" earlier this week, hoping we'd miss it. Not a chance. We've only got a short window of opportunity to make a big impact. Send a message to President Obama and the EPA — do NOT increase limits on radiation allowed in my drinking water.
You can drop a comment to the EPA at the above blue link, today is the last day.
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I had this to say
====================================I have a Masters Degree in Material Science from the U of Michigan. My education includes 5 years of study and research in radiation and heavy metals.
I am surprised and even shocked that an agency (that we pay your salaries, remember) created to protect the people, is proposing a standard that is effectively allowing an equivalent to 250 chest xrays a year.
This is shameful for a modern and so called civilized society to allow the people who pay your salary to protect them, to be exposed to these massive levels of radiation. Of course, internal radiation is far far worse than external radiation.
I also protest the "weasel words" of calling this "non regulatory guidance". Those civic leaders who have no where near the education and experience that I have, cannot possibly take this "guidance" if passed, as anything other than a directive.
The EPA needs to fight back against the corporate and nuclear cartel that is pulling the strings to loosen up the rules so this top heavy and archaic "science" that we call Civilian nuclear power, can have a chance at existing. Start representing us, again, and stop the puppet like response to the $1.4 Billion per year that the nuclear cartel spends to promote themselves and influence the EPA. Make us proud! Don't kill us. Don't pre-plan and allow more tolerance for a nuclear disaster at our aging nuclear plants that are averaging 2 emergency shutdowns per week.
Thank you, very much. Be real men and women, don't be a weasel.
stock here--there are many curious things about this EPA comment period:
1) they removed the "opportunity" for people to leave their full name and credentials.
2) Comments went from 300 the day before to 35,000 after the close of the comment period
and more
By: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
The PAGs have been expanded to cover not just large accidents but any release of radioactivity for which a protective action may be considered. They cover the “intermediate phase” after “releases have been brought under control” – an unspecified period that may last for years. …
The new guidance would permit radiation exposures equivalent to 250 chest X-rays a year and, for some radionuclides, a person could receive a lifetime dosage from a small glass of water.
Despite public consternation about the plan, EPA has employed troubling hide-the-ball ploys, such as –
• Although it would set new concentrations for 110 radionuclides, EPA has not disclosed what those new concentrations would be for all but three of these. Yet, internal EPA documents obtained by PEER claim that proposed concentrations "would exceed MCLs [Maximum Contaminant Limits of the Safe Drinking Water Act] by a factor of 100, 1000, and in two instances, 7 million."
• EPA removed from the electronic portal for comments (regulations.gov) the boxes for commenters to include their names, an extraordinary move that reduces specific public input from a range of experts, cities and even states as coming from "anonymous" sources; and
• Taking the unexplained step of requiring all documents submitted to be in full (no urls) but imposing a limit of ten megabytes per attachment.
"This is a very creepy plan rolled out in an especially creepy fashion," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that because the public comments are concluded EPA can put the plan into effect at any time. "It is unconscionable that full impacts of suspending drinking water safeguards during long periods of nuclear fallout are hidden from the public." …
From jebus at ENENEWS
Some FOIA docs, from first link, pertaining to the poison PAG's proposed publicly… in 2009…
Tell EPA: Stop Dangerous Radioactive Drinking Water
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/140210
http://www.peer.org/assets/docs/epa/4_5_10_EPA_Office_Gen_Counsel_Email.pdf
http://www.peer.org/assets/docs/epa/4_5_10_OSRTI_Comments.pdf
http://www.peer.org/assets/docs/epa/4_5_10_Radionuclide_Tables.pdf
See the viral video from HBO - VICE Fukushima
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Another comment from a reader at ENENEWS
My comment to the EPA:
Time for an overhaul. Ridiculous. You are not my representative, nor my environment or childrens.
You obviously represent the struggling, bankrupt, careless and planet poisoning nuclear industry.
That you would ever even propose such toxic nonsense in drinking water, no matter the circumstance, is very telling of who you work for.
Shame on you…and shame on Americans for letting things go this far.
Am I an angry citizen? Of course I am! You're so far in- you can't see out!
Your job is to protect the environment and children, not propose more of the most toxic substances known to man in their DRINKING water.
You have taken the responsibility of protecting our water and turned it into a green light for the nuclear industry to "spill" unprecedented amounts of their radioactive poisons into our drinking water- for our babies??
Useless and detrimental, you have become. I vote no and I vote to have you disbanded and tried for treason.
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RE: Proposed Change in EPA PAG Guidelines for radiological contamination of water
Please make your comment at the link here no later than today,
July 25, 2016
https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2007-0268-0210&p=1
Your Comment Tracking Number: 1k0-8qyh-g9qf
RE: EPA proposal to change PAG's for allowable radiological contamination in water during a radiological accident
July 25, 2016
Changing the PAG's for radiological content during a nuclear accident will NOT protect the public. It is completely antithetical to logic to increase allowable amounts of radiological contamination in water, and state this is part of a "protective action."
It would appear the nuclear power industry has once again persuaded the EPA to set aside its stated goals of protecting public health, and instead is adopting PAG's which would favor the nuclear industry.
By raising PAG's for water and "alert levels" for radiological contamination of air, the EPA gives at least the appearance of abandoning public safety concerns.
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(cont.)
The level of radiological contaminants in U.S. air has risen to the point where airborne contaminant levels now exceed the former alert threshold of 100CPM on a routine basis. The public is not warned, nothing is done. Having raised PAG "allowable levels" of airborne contaminants has placed U.S. citizens in the position of receiving constant airborne doses of radiological contaminants without their knowledge or consent. Even when the levels exceed the current alert threshold of 350CPM, NOTHING is done to warn the public or help citizens protect themselves from unsafe and unhealthy exposure levels.
EPA has proven itself irresponsible in protecting the public and warning citizens of radiological hazards since well before many of the air monitoring stations were shut down or failed during the Fukushima Daichi plant meltdowns in 2011. The Agency has begun remediating this situation, which is a very good thing. (See EPA Proposal for upgrading the system dated 2012.)
Please do not change the allowable levels of water-borne radiological contamination in the PAG's. This would be doing the public a great disservice, and would be extremely harmful to human health.
EPA should not follow "Health Physics" guidelines in establishing "safe" thresholds of radiation exposure, as it has been known for decades there is no safe level of radiation exposure. -
(cont.)
Please note I am a professional in the water purification industry and operate a small scale water purification business which supplies drinking water to the public in a retail location. I'm moderately well versed in water quality and the nature of contamination in water.
It deeply saddens me to see Tritium levels in water are allowed and called "safe" at 20,000 picocuries per liter. The presence of more than a tiny amount of Tritium in drinking water is due to atmospheric weapons testing and multiple nuclear accidents. I deeply regret I do not possess the knowledge or ability to remove Tritium in our plant's facilities. The thought of the public's being exposed to increasingly high levels of radiological contaminants and calling this "allowable" during a nuclear accident is absolutely abhorrent to me.
What could possibly cause EPA to consider making such a BAD decision?
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Furthermore (and this was not part of my comment to EPA), by stating the PAG's are for radiological incidents sort of guts the protective aspect of the regulations, non? Does this mean EPA and/or its regulating agency enforcing the PAG's would need do nothing if contaminant levels rose above PAG guidelines, and a "radiological incident" or nuclear accident was not involved?
I've just grown so wary of the sneaky weasel wording in these documetns, sometimes it's very upsetting.
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Have you heard about the Nuremberg Trials? After WW2, it was determined that scientists had a high moral responsibility to those they "protected" by using science, and the public's money to do that science. They found that scientists who had lied, misled, and otherwise abused their power and obligation to the public were guilty of a high crime.
Some were put to death. It didn't matter that they were "just following orders". It doesn't matter that you all are captured by the nuclear/industrial industries even if you don't know it. Social unrest is very high and we are at a tipping point (potentially) in which you may find an extreme backlash against government scientists who did not protect those who paid their salaries.
It is time to step back, look at the big picture. Nearly all of us are sick in some way, or the Big C Cancer.
Do your jobs. Turn on all the Beta and Gamma radiation stations in the USA. Fix them if need be. Data transmission via cell or WIFI is simplistic, that was used as an excuse for why some weren't worth operating.
We are watching your actions.
No, this sounds like a horrible idea. 250 chest xray a year equivalent.
ReplyDeleteYa, we really rallied quite a bit of strong opposition and comments. The EPA is beholden to corporate interests, we need to take them to task....remind them that they have Nuremberg level responsibility, and that we are paying their salaries.
DeleteWell your creds from UMich are good and all but they dont stack up to a PhD in nuclear engineering and science from a better engineering school. Lets not talk creds for a minute and dissect your message. Have you submitted any of your work in nuclear to a reputable journal that is held in high regard? I review articles for journals before they get published and this you post isnt ready for prime time.
DeleteWhen you say "do your jobs" to those in the field, do you even know what their day to day job is in fact?
Increasing rad limits 100 fold wont necessarily increase cancer risk 100 unless you agree with LNT as science not policy, and from your previous writings you dont think LNT is science. So you are sounding either illogical or contradictory.
Heres something every second grader knows:
100*zero is still zero.
So do you really think the allready ridiculously low limits the risk averse regulators impose really protect people?
In the end it just alarms them to take even more ridiculous precautions. Where do you think sunblock with SPF 300 comes from? The psychology versus science wins out.
And your UMich degrees wont help you understand why that is. You cant fix stupid as they say.
Now if you really wany to do some good, then putting risk in perspective is a start.
Then you will undestand nuclear science and tech are way low on the hazard scale.
I recently had an MRI. That gave me more risk than working where i work, and that has nasty stuff. But i know how to protect myself and im not saying use SPF 300.
Loose Nuke has obviously never heard of boiling frogs. He also fails to give a compelling argument for raising the limits. More radiation is never better, period... and he should know that zero does not exist in this realm.
DeleteLoose nuke should know that because there are large individual differences in reaction to radiation and propensity to get cancer or other disease from radiation, that any amount of radiation is simply pre-mediatated murder, like shooting into a crowd.
DeleteThe terrorists of science. However....you can never prove that it was their bullet that did it, even though you caught them with the rifle and the empty shell.
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