Radioactive rain in Mass.
Health bigs: Water supply ‘unaffected’ by Japan falloutBy O’Ryan Johnson
Monday, March 28, 2011
State health officials said the fallout from crippled Japanese nuclear reactors has unleashed a radioactive rain over the Bay State, but they insisted levels are too low to pose a threat to health.
“The drinking water supply in Massachusetts is unaffected by this short-term, slight elevation in radiation,” said Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach. “However, we will carefully monitor the drinking water as we exercise an abundance of caution.”
Auerbach said routine sampling of rainwater last week in Massachusetts as well as California, Pennsylvania and Washington all showed similar elevated levels of radioiodine-131. Air samples in the same Massachusetts location showed no elevated levels. Health officials declined to reveal the town where the sample was taken.
Ronald Ballinger, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, agreed that fallout from the crippled Japanese reactors is not dangerous to the continental United States. He said even if the plant were to melt down, the radiation making its way to the Bay State would be unlikely to reach a level dangerous to humans. These levels, he said, are nothing to worry about.
“The concentrations are so low as to be absurd,” Ballinger said, when contacted by the Herald. “The event is pretty much contained, right now. They have power back to the site.”
State officials said they believe the rainwater readings are the result of radiation emitted shortly after the earthquake and tsunami when the highest levels were recorded. Radiation from natural sources including rocks, bricks and the sun is about 100,000 times higher than the radioactive trace material determined to have come from Japan, health officials said.
Auerbach said in addition to being harmless levels of radiation, the half-life of the material is about eight days, meaning it will shortly dissolve to an undetectable level. Meanwhile, state health officials said they are sampling water supplies across the state for elevated readings. Thus far, the testing has shown no detectable levels.
Low-level radiation found in Massachusetts rainwater
BOSTON |
BOSTON (Reuters) - Trace amounts of radioactive iodine linked to Japan's crippled nuclear power station have turned up in rainwater samples as far away as Massachusetts during the past week, state officials said on Sunday.
The low level of radioiodine-131 detected in precipitation at a sample location in Massachusetts is comparable to findings in California, Washington state and Pennsylvania and poses no threat to drinking supplies, public health officials said.
Air samples from the same location in Massachusetts have shown no detectable radiation.
The samples are being collected from more than 100 sites around the country that are part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Radiation Network monitoring system.
"The drinking water supply in Massachusetts is unaffected by this short-term, slight elevation in radiation," said Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach.
"We will carefully monitor the drinking water as we exercise an abundance of caution," he said.
At concentrations found, the radioiodine-131 would likely become undetectable in a "relative short time," according to a statement issued by agency.
Trace amounts of radiation believed to have originated from damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors in the aftermath of Japan's devastating 9.0 earthquake on March 11 have also been detected in air samples in several western U.S. states, but at levels so small they posed no risk to human health. (Reporting by Ros Krasny; Editing by Steve Gorman and Todd Eastham)
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