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News junkies should know that a detector in Sacramento detected increased radiation.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/03/18/3486932/epa-measures-slight-radiation.html
Allow me to pull the wool from your eyes.
First off, That data may be two or more days old.
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/03/radiation-plume-modelers-chafe.html?ref=hp
Second, the plume of death actually has to hit the detector in Sacramento. I say THE DETECTOR because there is only one detector for radiation contamination on the west coast.
So, when the government says you’re safe; Just fucking run.
check the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s website…click on international monitoring system, then Radionuclide
http://www.ctbto.org/map/
Now don’t get fooled by low readings from Beta Ray detectors. There are Beta ray detectors and there are Radionuclotide detectors. Beta Ray detectors don’t measure radiation contamination directly. They measure Beta rays (duh) They work like a gieger counter. However a gieger counter doesn’t measure health risk directly.
In addition, Geiger counter readings don’t tell you a thing about the type of radiation a person may be exposed to – whether it’s a fairly weak and short-lived isotope that doesn’t pose a health risk, a form of radioactive iodine that signals the need to take protective tablets, or a more sinister isotope, such as cesium-137, that can raise long-term health risks if it gets inside the body.
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.net/news/npr/134627643/decontamination-after-radiation-exposure-simpler-than-you-may-think
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionuclide
This video on radiation shows a beta detector
Look at the video. That scientist could have eaten a pound of uranium and it wouldn’t set off the Beta detector. BECAUSE BETA DETECTORS DON’T measure contamination, JUST DIRECT RADIATION.
So anyhow, when the government says you are safe, they are operating on data probably at least a day old, and with a single sample point somewhere in Sacramento.
Also those nice computer animations of the radiation… are just computer models. (correct me if I’m wrong) but they just plugged a few points of data into a weather simulation.
Thank You FDL.
**EDIT
Sorry. I may have assumed that beta detectors don’t collect particulates. I was completely wrong, because some beta detectors have filters that collect particles for the detectors to detect. I didn’t know this when I wrote the blog, so this entire blog is SUSPECT. I know I upset some people and all I can do is apologize.
**EDIT Again I apologise. Found a picture of an installation of the EPA RADNET detector. Looks like it has some kind of filter. So Sorry.
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/16/6282458-us-boosts-radiation-sniffing-system
8 Comments
Yeeeks!
Makes me feel all warm and loved by my gov’t.
s/
Sorry, I don’t have a nice thing to say right now.
Thank you for your hysterical fearmongering.
The Nuclear Test Ban radiation monitor operated by the DoE is the most sensitive but far from the the only radiation monitor. The EPA also operates RadNet with around 100 detectors across the US, which those detectors aren’t just looking for Beta rays.
“I think, from my point of view, the most important aspect of the U.S. government recommendation of a 50-mile evacuation zone applies not just to the situation here in Japan right now, but to potential future situations in the United States. The primary danger to American citizens at the moment is not from radiation emanating from the plant in Japan; it’s the potential future release of radiation if we have an accident like this in the United States. And, for example, the nuclear plant in the U.S. which has been said to be most vulnerable to earthquake activity is not, as I had expected, in California; it’s Indian Point, 27 miles north of New York City. If there were to be the kind of release at Indian Point that we are seeing now at Fukushima, a 50-mile evacuation zone involves the entire New York metropolitan area. And I’m not sure quite how we would evacuate the 20 million people who live in that metropolitan area or where we would put them.”
“We must no longer license any new nuclear plants. We should shut down the ones like Indian Point. How many people know that Hillary Clinton, as senator, and Andrew Cuomo, as attorney general, demanded that Indian Point be shut down? That doesn’t matter to the monetized minds in Washington, D.C.”
From here:
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/18/underestimating_the_seriousness_of_the_problem
and re the reactors in CA:
“”Roughly 424,000 live within 50 miles of the Diablo Canyon and 7.4 million live within 50 miles of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station,” the letter says, adding that “we need to ensure that the risk is fully evaluated.”
so the same problem of evacuation regarding Indian Point exists for San Onofre and too a much lesser extent Diablo Canyon.
From here:
http://www.ocregister.com/news/san-292483-onofre-plants.html
Agree with you, spanishinquisition. I’m looking at the map for RadNet: at a rough count, I think there are 14 or so monitoring stations west of the Sierras/Cascades (plus one in Juneau).
PS – May I borrow the comfy chair?
https://cdxnode64.epa.gov/radnet-public/showMap.do
FYI Marinara … you can alter your title to reflect that there is an update or correction within the body of your post. For example:
Correction: There’s NOT Just One Detector For Radiation Contamination On The Entire West Coast
Also the title line will accept the FDL text treatments as I seen them in other posts’ titles and have tested themself using the draft preview function.