Radiation in our drinkingwater

I live in Norway, and i just met a guy (some months ago) that was doing some minor research on the drinkingwater in our state.
and he found some interesting finds after testing the water and reading tons of articles and searhing through the web. i aint got so much of the documents he has found yet, so this might need an update later, but i have memorized some and taken his research a tiny bit further:

The results of water was derived from water samples that was filtered and some right from the tap.
They told a story of 50% over the recomended value of aluminum,
it contained led,
asbestos, wich comes from the pipelines
and radiation.

while most of the values are "ok" in the sense of regulations set by the goverment in Norway and by EU regulations, they are actually mildly dangurous.

something about aluminum: www.telegraph.co.uk...

well lets get to the point:

in our drinking water we had 25 bq/kg

25 beqrell is an okay amount, but it depends on wich type of radioactive substanse that causes the 25 bq.

The researchers that was testing the water said: "it had gone up quite a bit since fukushima, but nothing to vory about, 25 bq can`t hurt you"
out of curiosity i searched for standardiced levels off allowed bq in drinking water, the resoult came from japan:
1 bq plutonium pr kg is dangerous, don`t drink
25 bq uranium pr kg is dangerous don`t drink.
other values goes above the values in our tested water, so i don`t care much for them.

but since the researchers said it had gone up quite a bit since fukushima, i figured i had to see what fueled fukushima, and it was mainly uranium AND plutonium.
so if we are drinking 25 bq pr kg plutonium, we are kinda fcked. i would love to see someone figure out what the levels of plutonium is in the global drinkingwater / affected drinkingwater, it is tested yearly in norway, but the test results for plutonium and uranium is not revealed.

edits/ updates are to be expected

a reply to: bksl90

How are the Arsenic levels in the water? Can you remember that? (pretty common finding in water supplies throughout the US. Just wondering if you guys have the same issue.)

a reply to: GiulXainx

I`m sorry, i can`t remember, but i will get back to you on that one.

I saw a post from a news magazine in Norway that said they found high levels of arsenic in the drinkingwater.

there is a pharma company that is tied to the testings of water supplies around norway actually, they don`t include all the details in their report about water, exclude aluminum and asbestos.

a reply to: bksl90

What kind of filtration leaves aluminum, lead & asbestos in water? And I thought water itself doesn't carry radiation (unless there's particulates in the water for it to cling to, which, the filthy water you're speaking of apparently does have.)

With the incident of Fukushima, coupled with old pipes you get the lead. Back in the 1950's almost every water pipe contained lead in its base to help out with cutting costs. But the problem is that the pipes slowly diminish over time and then the lead gets into the stream of water.

a reply to: GiulXainx

Pretty much every drop of water used by humanity is tainted with something harmful. Municipal water supplies frighten me. I know my boiling and filtering doesn't remove fluoride, that's what worries me the most.

But as for radiation, Fukushima's like the nail in the coffin. As if the effects of Chernobyl weren't enough to wake people up.

a reply to: bksl90

Anything with a Bq of 25 is perfectly safe - for example, banana's contain trace amounts of radioactive potassium and have an average Bq rating of around 15 or Brazil nuts, which contain Potassium and Radium, can be as high as 400Bq/kg.

1Bq is an extremely small unit of measurement. It does seem from your OP that you are somewhat confused about the unit, which is possibly what has led to this thread.

The Bq rating is a measurement of radioactivity in a given amount - your statement that "if we're drinking 25Bq/kg of plutonium" seems to imply you think that 1 Bq is different from another depending on the material present - it isn't.

If something gives off 25Bq, it gives off 25Bq, regardless of whether it has radium, potassium or plutonium or in fact any other element in it. It's like saying 1 litre of water is more than 1 litre of petrol.

a reply to: bksl90

Something seems a little off. My admittedly limited understanding of ocean currents would suggest it would take a long time for radioactive water from Japan to get to Norway. It would be very diluted along the way. Other places would experience this problem first. Also, I doubt that Norway gets its drinking water from seawater.

Look for a local problem. Either naturally occurring deposits of uranium or ...

originally posted by: stumason
a reply to: bksl90

Anything with a Bq of 25 is perfectly safe - for example, banana's contain trace amounts of radioactive potassium and have an average Bq rating of around 15 or Brazil nuts, which contain Potassium and Radium, can be as high as 400Bq/kg.

1Bq is an extremely small unit of measurement. It does seem from your OP that you are somewhat confused about the unit, which is possibly what has led to this thread.

The Bq rating is a measurement of radioactivity in a given amount - your statement that "if we're drinking 25Bq/kg of plutonium" seems to imply you think that 1 Bq is different from another depending on the material present - it isn't.

If something gives off 25Bq, it gives off 25Bq, regardless of whether it has radium, potassium or plutonium or in fact any other element in it. It's like saying 1 litre of water is more than 1 litre of petrol.

It's a lot safer drinking water than petrol...

a reply to: WP4YT

So? What has that got to do with the volume? Nothing. You seem to have misunderstood as well - congratulations.

1Bq is simply a measure of radioactivity in a given volume or mass. It matters not if the substance concerned is paper or plutonium, if it is emitting 25 bq/kg, it is harmless.

a reply to: VictorVonDoom

It doesn't even have to be uranium - as I said above, a Banana has an average "bq" of 15, because of the potassium in it.

As leadpipes or pipes that contain lead are pretty much non existing today because of health risk, i doubt it's a problem.

I can't see how asbestos get in the drinking water as it's an outside insulation material on pipes, and it's very rare to find asbestos on pipes today.

There is no way radiation from Fukushima has reached Norway in any huge amount, so if it is contaminated with radiation it's from another source.

Here is a link to a water report from measurements in Norway 2011, and it shows very low contamination of the mentioned in OP, i would happily drink the water in Norway going from this.

CLICK ME

Actually the radiation waves should have already encompassed the entire globe by now with all of the wind patterns across the globe. At least that is what experts said about the incident back in 2011 when they shipped a lot of the workers in Fukushima to Denver International airport. I still remember working at TSA and seeing a lot of West Indie people in the airport. in 2012 I became a cab driver and a lot of the people who were affected actually came to the CCRM. (Colorado Center of Reproductive Medicine.)

Some of the passengers I picked up afterward had a lot of mixed emotions from there. Most of which were chinese... Or at least they spoke in Chinese.

So you'd have to think that some of the radiation is now carried through the rain. I know it doesn't mean much when it comes to the pipes in the ground, however do we not recycle water?

I live in Norway too, and have lived and worked in lots of countries all over the world, so I know just a bit about tap water quality in most parts of the world. Norway has some of the cleanest tap water in the world. In most other countries that I have been to, you are playing with your life if you even attempt to brush your teeth with tap water, let alone drinking it.

a reply to: Mianeye
erm, I think the OP is talking about the country Norway. The report you linked to is for a city called Norway. I never knew there was a city called Norway, lol .... See you learn something new every day

a reply to: Hellhound604

You are absolutely right, don't know how i missed that one

The city of Norway is in Iowa USA

a reply to: bksl90
25 bq isn't much like others have stated but-
Asbestos sounds worrying-that stuff is a real lung killer.Not sure if its as bad for the digestive system,but I expect its not good.
We also have trace amounts of antidepressants(lithium,prozac etc),and the chemicals which illegal drugs break down into after passing through humans.

I heard an interesting radio program a while back on BBC radio 4 about how water treatment plants can install detectors,with which they can deduce the level of coc aine/heroin use in a town/city.
The program also talked about how "intersex" fish were found in highest concentrations just downstream of water treatment plants-they claimed this was due to the small amounts of contraceptive drugs/hormones which got through the treatment plant...
Makes you wonder.

And hey,don't forget the flouride if they add that in your area,or the chlorine or the millions of micro organisms which survive treatment,or the fact that all the water we drink has been through hundreds of generations of humans...

Apart from that-anyone for a nice glass of chilled tap water?



Drugs detected in water:

www.bath.ac.uk...

Radio4 program about medicines getting into water:

www.bbc.co.uk...

I love beating dead horses - just call me late to the party.

stumason told it straight.

Drinking a kilogram of your water that is firing 25 becquerel is equivalent to eating 2 average bananas. There is actually a 'thing' called a "Banana Equivalent Dose" or BED. It isn't a real thing, it is just a common calculation to explain how small a Bq is : 1 Becquerel = 1 atom decay per second.

Wikipedia: Banana Equivalent Dose

The major natural source of radioactivity in plant tissue is potassium: 0.0117% of the naturally-occurring potassium is the unstable isotope potassium-40 (40K). This isotope decays with a half-life of about 1.25 billion years (4×1016 seconds), and therefore the radioactivity of natural potassium is about 31 Bq/g – meaning that, in one gram of the element, about 31 atoms will decay every second.[2][3] Plants naturally contain other radioactive isotopes, such as carbon-14 (14C), but their contribution to the total activity is much smaller.[citation needed] Since a typical banana contains about half a gram of potassium,[4] it will have an activity of roughly 15 Bq.[5] Although the amount in a single banana is small in environmental and medical terms, the radioactivity from a truckload of bananas is capable of causing a false alarm when passed through a Radiation Portal Monitor used to detect possible smuggling of nuclear material at U.S. ports.[6]

The dose uptake from ingested material is defined as committed dose, and in the case of the overall effect on the human body of the radioactive content of a banana, it will be the "committed effective dose". This is typically given as the net dose over a period of 50 years resulting from the intake of radioactive material.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), isotopically pure potassium-40 will give a committed dose equivalent of 5.02 nanosieverts over 50 years per Becquerel ingested by an average adult.[7] Using this factor, one banana equivalent dose comes out as about 5.02 nSv/Bq × 31 Bq/g × 0.5 g ≈ 78 nanosieverts = 0.078 μSv. In informal publications one often sees this estimate rounded up to 0.1 μSv.

So the BED is 78 nanosieverts = 0.078 μSv/yr. Your 25 Bq/g water would be hitting you with about 0.063 μSv/yr.

On the other hand, according to Wikipedia: Environmental impact of the Coal Industry

A 1978 paper from Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimated that coal-fired power plants of that time may contribute a whole-body committed dose of 19 µSv/yr to their immediate neighbours in a 500 m radius.

Which is about 240BED or 300 times the dose from your water supply.

And another example: IOPScience: Society for Radiological Protection: Journal of Radiological Protection: An investigation into radiation exposures in underground non-uranium mines in Western Australia

A preliminary investigation into the radiological conditions in underground non-uranium mines in Western Australia has been undertaken. Measurements of radon concentration by passive track etch monitors and absorbed gamma dose-rate by thermoluminescent dosimetry were undertaken in 27 mines.
...
The average annual effective dose across all mines was estimated to be 1.4±1.0 mSv, ranging from 0.4 mSv for a nickel mine to 4.2 mSv for a coal mine. Radon progeny exposure contributed approximately 70% of the total effective dose. The estimated average annual effective dose in three coal mines (employing 297 workers) was 2.9±1.5 mSv. On the basis of this preliminary investigation it was concluded that no regulatory controls are specifically required to limit radiation exposures in Western Australia underground mines.

Finally according to MIT News:
Explained: rad, rem, sieverts, becquerels - A guide to terminology about radiation exposure

the average natural background radiation in the United States is 2.6 mSv.

Don't be worried about the radiation in your water, there are much worse things to worry about.

Edit: also don't stop eating Bananas or Brazil nuts either - they are good for you.

a reply to: rnaa

I beg to differ.... I believe trying to compare things that come out of nuclear fission; ie Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 Tritium etc to naturally occurring radiation in banana's/potatoes/brazil nuts etc. is an invalid argument.

So is the whole airplane trip stuff too before you post that as well.

That being said,,, 25bq is a very small amount.

a reply to: bksl90

Thank you for posting your questions about radiation in drinking water. I have written an article on human health effects of ionizing radiation (IR -- the type of radiation emitted by all nuclear reactors and by all radioactive elements). I have no financial connection with the global nuclear industry, nor with any anti-nuclear groups.

RickinVa, agreed that comparing radioisotopes that come out of nuclear fission with naturally occurring radiation present in food is an invalid argument. It is also essential, however, to consider the greater risk associated with "internal emitters" (such as the drinking water that bksl90 discusses), which for humans includes any IR that is inhaled, plus any IR swallowed in food and drink, as well as any IR absorbed through the skin. In my published article, for example, there are trigonometry figures to demonstrate why no air or water filters will ever be able to remove 100% of IR, even the most outrageously expensive filters. Therefore, the safest drinking water is deep spring water from a vendor whose website contains a state-certified analytical laboratory report to verify the presence or absence of IR in a sample of that water.

Dogstar23, you say you "thought that water itself doesn't carry radiation (unless there's particulates in the water for it to cling to)." I have an academic source from the Earth's first ocean seawater survey (completed in the late 1930s before any of Earth's nuclear reactors were ever built), showing the presence in seawater of what are called "primordial radioisotopes" at very low levels. As another example, consider the radioisotope tritium, which is radioactive hydrogen. The element hydrogen has 3 isotopes -- hydrogen itself, deuterium (so-called heavy water), and tritium; tritium is unstable, hence it is radioactive. Water, as we know, is the compound H2O. When tritium contamination occurs in water (as in the Fukushima dai-ichi nuclear disaster), one or both of the hydrogen atoms is replaced by tritium. That explains the difficulty discussed in Reuters News reports of removing tritium from seawater at Fukushima, because tritium is not *in* the water, tritium *is* the water.

bksl90 and everyone, be cautious in your search for authoritative sources to cite on IR. Be aware, for example, that Wikipedia is a pro-technology website that has a history of minimizing the human health risks of IR. The MIT News has a straightforward financial connection with the global nuclear industry...that colors the MIT view of nuclear reactors.

Yeahkeepwatchingme, it's true that boiling doesn't remove fluoride. A few outrageously expensive filters remove most fluoride, but then you will also have to look at the expected life of that filter to predict your total cost. I buy my deep spring drinking water (with no fluoride) at discount stores in California like Trader Joe, Smart & Final, Dollar Tree, and 99 cent stores.