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Granted, rain is not something you will be breathing in, but the Cs will be deposited in the soil and can easily be kicked up as dust or otherwise make it's way into the food chain through normal biological processes. Elsewhere we find this:and
Radiation levels in the US have declined, according to the EPA, but the agency has not released data on samples taken after April 30, making the results nearly two months old, according to data sets made public by the agency. The EPA typically releases test results two to four weeks after a sample is taken, and the EPA has not released new data on milk since May 24. On June 1, the EPA reported that the radionuclide cesium-137 was detected in one sample of drinking water, and two weeks later the same round of samples were clear of radiation.source
The EPA claims that the levels of radiation it did detect in recent months were not high enough to raise public health concerns. But how high do radiation levels have to be before the government takes action? For food products like milk, the EPA relies on Derived Intervention Levels (DIL) set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). DILs provide agencies with guidelines - not mandates - as to when the government should take action to keep food contaminated by radioactive material out of the hands of consumers. A DIL "does not define a safe or unsafe level of exposure, but instead a level at which protective measures would be recommended to ensure that no one receives a significant dose," according to the FDA web site. The DIL for iodine-131, one of the radioactive materials released from Japan, in food products like milk is set at 170 becquerels per kilogram. That number is 1,500 times higher than another government standard, the Maximum Containment Level for iodine-131 in drinking water, which is set by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Caesium-134 has a half-life of 2.0652 years. It is produced both directly (at a very small yield because 134Xe is stable) as a fission product and via neutron capture from nonradioactive Cs-133 (neutron capture cross section 29 barns), which is a common fission product. Caesium 134 is not produced via beta decay of other fission product nuclides of mass 134 since beta decay stops at stable 134Xe. It is also not produced by nuclear weapons because 133Cs is created by beta decay of original fission products only long after the nuclear explosion is over.
The combined yield of 133Cs and 134Cs is given as 6.7896%. The proportion between the two will change with continued neutron irradiation. 134Cs also captures neutrons with a cross section of 140 barns, becoming long-lived radioactive 135Cs.
137Cs with a half-life of 30.17 years is one of the two principal medium-lived fission products, along with 90Sr, which are responsible for most of the radioactivity of spent nuclear fuel after several years of cooling, up to several hundred years after use. It constitutes most of the radioactivity still left from the Chernobyl accident. 137Cs beta decays to barium-137m (a short-lived nuclear isomer) then to nonradioactive barium-137, and is also a strong emitter of gamma radiation. 137Cs has a very low rate of neutron capture and cannot be feasibly disposed of in this way, but must be allowed to decay. 137Cs has been used as a tracer in hydrologic studies, analogous to the use of 3H.
Gross state product for 2004 was US$43.6 billion. The per capita income for 2004 was US$26,881. Idaho is an important agricultural state, producing nearly one-third of the potatoes grown in the United States. All three varieties of wheat, Dark Northern Spring, Hard Red and Soft White are grown in the state. Nez Perce County is considered a premier Soft White growing locale.
pose no significant threat to health
Originally posted by siren8
You want radiation in your food. It kills food germs. If you ever see them stop irradiating your vegetables, its time to panic. We don't need e-coli here.
Not all radiation is dangerous to humans. You need to do your sesearch before you panic and encite others to worry over nothing.
Please do tell me which emissions you are worried about and how you are sure they got this far
Originally posted by emptyOmind
this is fear mongering IMO, same as the ol' end of the world in 2012 deal, same as y2k.. just another distraction
edit on 30/6/11 by emptyOmind because: (no reason given)
British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.
"This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally," wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose name has been redacted. "We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear."
The Fukushima accident, triggered by the Japan earthquake and tsunami on 11 March, has forced 80,000 people from their homes. Opinion polls suggest it has dented public support for nuclear power in Britain and around the world, with the governments of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Thailand and Malaysia cancelling planned nuclear power stations in the wake of the accident.
"Radiation released has been controlled – the reactor has been protected," said the BIS official, whose name has been blacked out. "It is all part of the safety systems to control and manage a situation like this."
"Anti-nuclear people across Europe have wasted no time blurring this all into Chernobyl and the works," the official told Areva. "We need to quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl."
Other documents released by the government's safety watchdog, the office for nuclear regulation, reveal that the text of an announcement on 5 April about the impact of Fukushima on the new nuclear programme was privately cleared with nuclear industry representatives at a meeting the previous week. According to one former regulator, who preferred not to be named, the degree of collusion was "truly shocking".