Energy Secretary orders data released near ex-uranium plant(Piketon)

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has ordered his agency to release more than four years' worth of data from air monitors near an Ohio school where trace amounts of radioactive material were discovered.

Perry says the data from 2015 through the first quarter of this year comes from six air monitoring stations on Energy Department property and ten in the surrounding southern Ohio community.

Perry told Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in a letter Monday the data was provided to Pike County authorities, and to the Ohio Department of Health and the state Environmental Protection Agency.

Zahn's Corner Middle School was closed last week while more tests are done and health impacts are evaluated.

The school is several miles from the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which produced enriched uranium until 2001.

“Trace amounts of enriched uranium and neptunium were found in the near the school. Not a container.”

This story does not reference a container. I should not have made that comment without being more clear and stating where it came from...my memory of another of many articles I have read on this.

There has been lots of churning on this story in local press. Also a local “protestor” group is seeding some stories with press releases. The first story I read from at least 10 days ago....don’t recall what publication....displayed a covered Petri dish showing a small amount of white cake.

On reading further, the whole shebang may be a false flag. The locals and contractors around Piketon are always agitating for more fed funding. The site has been in liquidation/reclamation since the mid-90’s.

Given no similar levels of contamination between the plant and the school, I speculate someone may well have seeded the site...though that is my conjecture and not in the press yet. But given the nature of the area, the timing, the footprint of the evidence and the local actors I am suspicious.

Read this earlier article about a contractor “on the outs” with the plant and the DoE....

“Manuta said it is possible, but a long shot, that uranium found inside the school could be a result of a plant program from years ago through which he and two others did science demonstrations in schools. During such demonstrations, he said, the uranium was encased in a container to prevent radiation from getting into the surrounding atmosphere.”

https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190515/former-chief-scientist-at-pike-county-uranium-plant-wants-transparency-and-truth-from-feds

Being found in a school gives maximum “threat to the babies” hysteria spin, while the timing (end of school year) fuels the crisis narrative further with a school closure without really closing it since it is summer anyway...and the initial reports of contamination came from a local crank that collects radiation readings in the area and narcs about them all the time.

Hmmm.

Not sure what “Trace Amounts” mean as regards to health hazards. The actual amounts found need to be compared to allowable levels and an assessment made of the actual health hazard. In this case, it seems that a “knee jerk reaction” was made because radioactivity and children in the same sentence.

Uranium has a fairly low radiological toxicity, as a heavy metal the chemical toxicity is as much if not more of a concern the the radioactivity. That being said the origin of the enriched uranium and neptunium is almost certainly the Piketon plant. Both the enrichment of the uranium, and the production of neptunium require human intervention.

I worked at that facility for four years and participated in science demonstrations at several schools in the area. I know we took depleted uranium into schools (not enriched).

It should be easy to test the idea that these science demonstrations were the source of the contamination by checking schools that are far from the facility, since all the schools would be as likely to be contaminated as the school nearby.

Dr. Manuta has a consulting company and is a professional expert witness in the chemical and nuclear industries. You can check him out on line.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.