Tuesday, February 4, 2014

EPA Sets Disturbing Precedent by Walking Away from Radiation Contaminated Zone


Public Integrity has the story:

EPA abandons major radiation cleanup in Florida, despite cancer concerns. http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/01/30/14190/epa-abandons-major-radiation-cleanup-florida-despite-cancer-concerns

[Excerpt] The Environmental Protection Agency is walking away after a decades-long battle with Florida politicians and industry officials over cleaning up phosphate-mining waste in an area that could expose more than 100,000 residents to cancer-causing radiation levels. 

Under a decision quietly finalized two weeks ago, the federal agency will leave it to state officials to decide the fate of the sites in and around Lakeland, an approximately 10-square-mile residential area midway between Orlando and Tampa. 

However, Florida officials have long argued that the affected area need not be cleaned up in the absence of radiation levels well above what EPA policy would normally permit. 

The decision not to enforce the usual federal rules could have far-reaching implications for how the United States deals with future radioactive contamination anywhere across the country — regardless of whether it is caused by conventional industrial activities or illicit radiological weapons, critics say.[end]

Majia here: I recommend reading the entire article. What it means is that the EPA is going to set a precedent for 'passing' on enforcement of super-fund standards in radiation contaminated zones.

The article suggests the EPA pass is consistent with the recent decision by the EPA to raise protective action levels in the wake of radiation emergencies:

[Excerpt] The EPA decision not to enforce its Superfund standards at the Florida sites is consistent with a controversial new guide for dealing with the aftermath of dirty bomb attacks, nuclear power-plant meltdowns and other radiological incidents that the agency published last year, Daniel Hirsch, a nuclear policy lecturer at the University of California-Santa Cruz, told GSN. Documents GSN obtained in 2013 prompted concern among critics that EPA officials are looking to use the new guide — which is backed by the nuclear power industry — as a means for relaxing its radiation standards. [end]

Majia here: My understanding is that the new guidelines haven't been formally approved, but they are currently operative.

Frequent alert-level (plus 1000) beta spikes on Radnet in several west coast cities are indicative of rising background levels. 1000 cpm beta used to be an alert level for the EPA. Yet, I've heard of no alerts being issued.

This is really unbelievable. We make a huge mess of the environment and then we walk away from enforcing our own standards. These standards grossly underestimated the effects of chronic increases in radiation exposure coupled with other elemental and chemical synergies. Yet, even these lax standards are going to be abandoned.

Has someone decided its just too late to try and stop the great unravelling? 

I don't believe its too late, but walking away from the most contaminated areas - especially when inhabited by people - is insane and will no doubt accelerate decline.





3 comments:

  1. They're using hormesis pseudoscience to relax standards. It's open season on the environment, a green light for nuclear dumpers everywhere, not just nuclear power plants.

    "The agency uses the model pursuant to the recommendations of the National Academies of Science, which rejected other theories and based its suggestions largely on studies of atomic-bomb survivors in Japan and some other data. Industry argues, however, that the development of drinking-water guidelines “may consider but should not rely upon” the NAS model and should use “health effects data from actual radiological contamination experience of drinking water.”

    Environmentalists oppose straying from the NAS model for projecting cancer risk and fear the new guide could allow the agency to do so. In Sept. 16 comments on the new guide, Diane D’Arrigo, of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, raises concerns that some EPA officials who favor relaxing the agency’s normal rules have also appeared to challenge the model in presentations to international officials. Citing GSN reporting on the presentations, D’Arrigo notes one presentation compared the model to hormesis, a model previously rejected by EPA and NAS scientists that suggests low levels of radiation exposure is actually beneficial."

    http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/nuclear-power-industry-lawmakers-odds-over-epa-response-guide/

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  2. The politics of being a scientist. It is discouraging to see people forget what their duty is and go along with pressure--esp. money pressure. We as a society are eliminating bad old coal for nuclear power? With the new food there will be additional disease and general weakness for which prescriptions and vaccines will be the offered remedies. Yes, very discouraging. But wait, China has some new super weapon so money needs to go for our protection. America can always work up some war fever. Here is an excellent documentary--lengthy but very well done and highly informative. One half million mostly men were put on the project. Many died. But they saved Europe and the Ukrainian water supply. Something similar could happen here. And Fukushima is still setting there largely untouched by human activity, waiting for the next earthquake. Fatalism has enveloped the Japanese. Thanatos syndrome.

    Tchernobyl: Second Explosion 'Which Would Have Wiped Out Half Of Europe' Was Feared, Fought, KEPT SECRET
    http://femalefaust.blogspot.com/

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  3. They are literally out of their fracking minds.

    It would appear this sets another omnicidal precedent.
    Is this how they intend to clean up after any "nukular" incident in Continental North America?

    We are truly led by those with mindsets of children.

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