Tainted nuke plant water reaches major NJ aquifer

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
reply to post by JIMC5499

 

That's reassuring, but could you break down the math involved here? Pretty please?

EPA regulations specify 4 millirads per year for Tritium. The article states that there is 50 times that amount of contamination.

4 x 50 = 200

Average x-ray is between 3000 and 5000 millirads. Take the middle number and divide by 200.

4000/200=20

I spent a better part of a year living 500 feet from a nuclear reactor. No cancer yet and I don't expect to get any. I used to wear a radium wristwatch when I was a kid and got a larger dose than what they are saying is in that water.

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
reply to post by JIMC5499

 

That's reassuring, but could you break down the math involved here? Pretty please?

He can't, because he's pretending tritium in water is measured by millirems per year, when that's a measure of human exposure, and irrelevant to the measurement of anything in water.


You might as well measure distance in gallons.

reply to post by Kailassa


EPA's tritium standard for drinking water is 20,000 pCi/l.

Why EPA's tritium standard for drinking water (20,000 pCi/l) is undoubtedly way too lax

Is the current EPA limit tough enough? Not by a long shot. The EPA limit is based mainly on Hiroshima bomb victim studies, as are essentially all radiation-dose health-effects calculations by official groups such as EPA, BEIR, UNSCEAR, ICRP, etc.. Those studies were extremely biased. For example, ANY infant or child 5 years old or younger, who died in Hiroshima after The Bomb was SIMPLY NOT COUNTED. Stillbirths were not counted, even when the public health officials heard about them. Spontaneous abortions were not counted. Deformed babies who were born and lived only a few minutes were not counted. And yet it is from these horrifically biased studies that the 20,000 pCi/l drinking water standard was developed. For the most part, the standard for tritium is based on the effect of external radiation on otherwise healthy 15 to 40 year old males -- the least susceptible of all populations to radiation's biological damage!

But it gets much, much worse. Not only do the standards ignore all those souls -- those unborn deformities that never saw the light of day, those cuddly little two-year-olds, those walking, talking five-year-olds -- but, in addition to cutting all these people out of the record, in the case of tritium the officials have also ignored two very important secondary effects: . . .

Originally posted by Kailassa
He can't, because he's pretending tritium in water is measured by millirems per year, when that's a measure of human exposure, and irrelevant to the measurement of anything in water.


You might as well measure distance in gallons.

Exposure is what counts. The rest is BS.

We just bought a house (closing June 1) which gets well water from this aquifer. The water was tested on Friday and we are waiting for the labs to come back, but I'm not sure they test for that.

I was so stoked to finally have a well. All my life I was proud of the fact that the Cohansey aquifer had the best water around. Locals credit the sandy soil.

I have to research this, but it is disconcerting for sure.

Originally posted by On the level
After seeing some of Jersey Shore I have to say this could be a good thing

South Jersey is beautiful. Especially the South Jersey shore, which is nearly pristine in most locations. We don't mind if people think otherwise, though. Then they'll stay away.

Originally posted by JIMC5499

Originally posted by Kailassa
He can't, because he's pretending tritium in water is measured by millirems per year, when that's a measure of human exposure, and irrelevant to the measurement of anything in water.


You might as well measure distance in gallons.

Exposure is what counts. The rest is BS.

And the way to measure a person's exposure to tritium in water is to measure both the tritium content of the water they consume and the amount of water they consume.

It's basic maths . . .