San Francisco Rainwater Radiation 181 Times Above US Drinking Water Standard

TMO ^ | 4-5-2011 | DK Matai

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"A radioactive isotope, such as iodine-131, is supposed to have a half-life of eight days."

Right. And 2 + 2 is supposed to be 5. The halflives of isotopes is well characterized.

[The Great RJ]

I grew up in the 1950s when the US was still doing atmospheric nuclear tests in Nevada and I’m sure many in my generation absorbed as much or more radiation in our milk without killing us off.

[AngelesCrestHighway]

Berkely?....no problem.....they’ve all got two heads anyway.

[mbarker12474]

And besides, 100x of a very, very, very tiny thing is still a very, very, very tiny thing.

Let’s say I know with absolute certainty that I will die if I ingest...

1.000000000000000

units of a certain toxin.

Let’s say that we have some evidence that in a population of a million persons, that a few hundred will get sick and a small handful will die if all million ingest...

0.000000000000001

units of this toxin.

How well can we predict the illness and death rates if the population of one million is exposed to AN ALARMING 1000 TIMES the rate of toxin? Or

0.000000000001000

units of this toxin.

[Pontiac]

Half-life on I-131 is about 8 days ... I can live with that ...

Maybe not.

Milk goes from the cow to your store shelf in two to three days.

I-131 has a half-life of 8 days. Three half-lives in the general rule of thumb for an isotope to be decayed to a safe level from its initial level. So for I-131 that would be 24 days.

What the article does not say is that most milk cows in the US are fed on stored grain and hay which would not be exposed to rain fall.

So unless you are a person that drinks only organic pastured cow milk I would not be too worried.

[A CA Guy]

My milk glows in the dark and I can use it as a night light.

[onedoug]

islamism is still the greatest threat to us all.

[epithermal]

Today, EPA released its latest RadNet results, which include the first results for drinking water. Drinking water samples from two locations, Boise, Idaho and Richland, Washington, showed trace amounts of Iodine-131 – about 0.2 picocuries per liter in each case. An infant would have to drink almost 7,000 liters of this water to receive a radiation dose equivalent to a day’s worth of the natural background radiation exposure we experience continuously from natural sources of radioactivity in our environment.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Iodine 131 has a half-life of 8.03 days. If it truly has 181x the allowable level, keep it in your refigerator for two months and it will have decayed to permissible levels.

[NautiNurse]

That sounds like a load of crap.

;o)

[AngelesCrestHighway]

I agree....Anything to divert attention from the real threat.

[Mr. Silverback]

Let me put 20 Bq in perspective: You get 15 Bq from eating a banana.

[John O]

So that’s why those California cows are happy!! They glow in the dark so they can graze all night.

Looks like Wisconsin dairy is still the best. :^)

[Mr. Silverback]

Let me put 20 Bq in perspective: You get 15 Bq from eating a banana.

Media types love to use “this many times” or “this percent above/below” on pretty much anything because it makes amore compelling headline than the raw numbers. For example (taken from “Bad Science” by Ben Goldacre) if a study showed that eating a certain food or taking a certain medicine increased the number of heart attacks per ten thousand men from 2 to 4, the headlines would scream that said food or medicine doubles your heart attack risk or is a 100% increase. Technically true, but not as dire as it sounds. The bummer is that when they use the same technique ( “Bran reduces your cancer risk by 50%!!!!!!”) it convinces people there’s a bulletproof solution to diseases.

[Mr. Silverback]

Excellent point.

[Karl_Lembke]

I’ve been looking all over the EPA website trying to find that particular drinking water standard. The closest I can find is a standard for gross beta, at 4 mrem/year.

I’m starting to believe the standard is not an official one, perhaps even made up.

[blam]

"islamism is still the greatest threat to us all. "

I agree 100%.

Our children and grandchildren will one day ask why we didn't do something while we still could.

[DBrow]

Excellent point. You’ll never get a job as “journalist” if you keep up the sensible talk, you know.

[Mr. Silverback]

Well, there’s also this:

These guys are saying there’s an activity of 20 Bq per liter.

Eating a banana involves 15 Bq. So, already we have no risk.

But then consider that unless all the Iodine 131 in a liter of water goes straight to the milk with none staying in the cow, in any of the equipment, etc., the Bq is going to be reduced further by the time the product reaches you.

They are using the term 181 times because it makes a shocking headline. There’s nothing here.

[DBrow]

http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/index.cfm#Radionuclides

This does not mention I-131 but has standards for activity in general. It needs to be converted from pCi/l to Bq/l, to match the article, I’m quite busy so I’ll leave the conversion up to FReeperdom.