Mahalo, Kaua’i for your love & support.

Z Hough, Kapahi

U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey

RE: http://bqs.usgs.gov/fukushima/USGS%20Fukushima%20Fallout%20News%20Release%20Feb22.pdf
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2011/1277/

Aloha,

Thanks for your report:
Fission Products in National Atmospheric Deposition Program—Wet Deposition Samples Prior to and Following the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant Incident, March 8–April 5, 2011
I had a few questions.

The report states: “Samples were prioritized for analysis by region with the western region given first priority, and the eastern region given last priority. The goal of the prioritization scheme was to analyze samples with the greatest likelihood of containing fission products first, with a particular focus on short-lived radionuclides such as I-131. It was assumed that radionuclide concentrations in wet-deposition samples would be proportional to the west-to-east (prevailing wind direction; Takemura and others, 2011) distance from Japan”

I was wondering why we do not see Hawaii mentioned in your report; a state that showed high readings of radioactive cesium and iodine in milk (RadNet stopped showing us updated data; and once it went back online it was subsequently less layman-friendly). Considering Hawaii is a location relatively close to Japan with some areas receiving the highest rainfall in the U.S., I would assume it would be included. Please explain.
Also, I believe the only monitoring station in the state collecting rainfall data after 3/11was in Honolulu, an area that receives much less precipitation than most N/E areas of the islands. Just wondering if that fits with the directive; if there are any plans to upgrade?

Your news release states: “NADP, originally established in 1978 to measure acid rain, is operated by more than 100 federal, state, and local agencies and organizations, including the USGS and EPA…” so is the data used the same as that collected for/reflected in the EPA’s RadNet?

Is your wet deposition monitoring ongoing?
Why were no other radionuclides included?
How quickly (and comprehensibly) should this data be made to the public after an incident?
Is it presumed by USGS that detailed atmospheric monitoring related specifically to Fukushima is no longer necessary?

The report states: “I-131 was quantified and adjusted for decay to the time of sample collection for five wholewater wet-deposition samples from California, Colorado, and Washington. The activities of the quantified I-131 ranged from 29.6 to 1,090 pCi/L, and calculated deposition values ranged from 211 to 5,100 Bq/m 2. Several weeks transpired between sample collection and analysis of the I-131 in the water samples, which were prioritized for analysis from west (high priority) to east (low priority). Therefore, I-131 activities likely decayed in most of the samples before they could be measured.”

So because of the short half-life of radioactive Iodine, and the time it takes for the testing of collected samples, (even trying to factor in decay) is there no absolutely accurate figure for how much radioactive iodine was/is in the atmosphere? Are there any plans to upgrade/quicken this collection/testing process?

Also, has the criterium changed at all, specifically what may fall under “non-detect”?

I see in the report you state it is making no health claim. Yet in the News Release for the report it states it was “determined to be well below any level of public health concern.”
So I just want to confirm this reading for WA was below health concern (and if so, what reading would be considered public health concern [and has that quantification changed since 3/11]):
WA98 3/15–3/29/11 Precipitation: 126 I-131 activity: 1,090 1.4 I-131 Deposition: 5,100 Cs-134: 6.5

Thanks so much,
coconutgirlwireless@mac.com

From: Gregory A Wetherbee
Subject: Re: fission report
Thank you for your interest in our study and for your comments and questions. You make some excellent points.

1) NADP had 2 National Trends Network (NTN) sites in Hawaii, but they were discontinued by NOAA due to lack of funding. HI00 on Mauna Loa, was discontinued in 1993. HI99 at Volcanos National Park, was discontinued in 2005. It was very expensive to ship supplies to the sites and to ship the samples back to IL for analysis. A HI site would have been very useful for our study, and as you point out, it is an unfortunate hole in our data. Please keep in mind that the NADP is not responsible for radionuclide deposition monitoring. That is the responsibility of RadNet under the USEPA. NADP responded to the incident to help provide additional information. We didn’t even know whether we would be successful in collecting enough precipitation to measure the radionuclides, but we were delighted when the networks proved to be useful for this purpose.

2) RadNet is a totally separate and distinct network. RadNet’s purpose is to monitor public exposure to radionuclides from atmospheric deposition, both wet and dry. The mission or NADP/NTN is to measure wet-only deposition (rain, snow, and other precipitation) of major constituents: calicum, magnesium, sodium, potassium, ammonium, chloride, nitrate, sulfate, and hydrogen-ion (as pH, e.g. acid rain). NADP also has a Mercury Deposition Network (NADP/MDN) to measure wet-only deposition of mercury, and we have a new AMNet network that measures ambient mercury species in air and a new AMoN network to measure ammonia in air. NADP/NTN and MDN samples were used for the Fukushima study. The networks are in continuous operation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Samples are collected Tuesday mornings at approximately 9:00 a.m. The NTN is in its 33rd year of operation.

3) We looked for as many fission products as possible. The gamma spectrometer shows a complete spectra of gamma radiation energies, and software is used to analyze the spectra to identify which elements are present in quantifiable amounts in the samples. We only saw I-131, Cs-134, and Cs-137 in the precipitation samples. Certainly there must have been emission of other elements as others were indeed detected in ambient air monitors across the nation, but we did not detect any of those in our precipitation samples.

4) RadNet put data on its web site fairly quickly (within days / weeks) because they have an extensive radiochemical laboratory with many gamma spectrometers. We have only 2 spectrometers here in Denver. RadNet has about 40 sites. We have over 300 sites between the 2 networks. We had to analyze samples round the clock for about 3 months to gather all of our data. Then, we had to quality assure it, analyze it, write it up in a report and an interpretive paper, have both of those manuscripts peer reviewed, and then finally published. Although it took us 11 months to get the information published, that was actually (believe it or not) pretty fast. Nonetheless, we were hoping to have the article published in November, 2011, but the peer review process took 3 months longer than expected.

5) RadNet continues to monitor bulk deposition of radionuclides after every precipitation event that produces enough volume for analysis. So, it isn’t as if monitoring has stopped. NADP sampling stopped when researchers around the world stopped seeing the fission products in the ambient air. This was obviously an unplanned, and therefore not-budgeted, event. We did what we could with the funds that we could cobble together.

6) There is never an absolutely accurate measurement for anything in the environment. All measurements have uncertainty (error) and a specific radius of investigation. In environmental monitoring, we obtain samples, tiny fractions of what we hope is representative of the entire picture. Then, with these little bits of evidence, we try to illustrate what we interpret from the samples.

7) With respect to the I-131 decay, we can only back calculate to the time that the precipitation collector was last open during falling precipitation. Now, it could have been that the I-131 was deposited in the collector bucket during a storm on Monday, but the collector bucket was last closed on Tuesday morning just before time of collection. Since we’re not sure when the I-131 was deposited in the bucket, that becomes part of the uncertainty (error) in our measurements that is simply unavoidable. Now, RadNet collects its sample more frequently. RadNet obtains their samples when enough volume has been collected. So, the RadNet I-131 is possibly subject to less error with respect to decay correction. I hope that makes sense.

8) In the future, we would not count the filters, and we would not necessarily focus on the sites closest to the source (Japan in this case). Instead, we would run the whole-water samples and chose high altitude sites (where we saw most of the activity) and a broader spatial distribution of sites in our prioritization. We learned many lessons from this study.

9) Minimum detectable activity is a function of many things, such as the efficiency (quality) of the detector in reading the gamma radiation, background radiation in the laboratory, and other factors. The only thing that I can think of that would lower our MDAs would be an instrumentation upgrade to more efficient detectors, which is very expensive. Nonetheless, our MDAs are reasonably low as we detected sub picocurie amounts of Cs-134, which is pretty good by most standards.

10) USGS does not have health physicists to conduct proper exposure scenarios and evaluate human health risk. Therefore, we quoted EPA’s web site that indicated that levels were well below any level of public health concern. For more information on human health risk, I will refer you to EPA RadNet.

I hope that these answers address your concerns. Please let me know if you have additional questions.

Best regards,

Greg Wetherbee, USGS/BQS

I do know Karlos somewhat; was there the day he got his first geiger – he was going to loan it to me. Tried to speak with him about his readings but he likes to keep his voicemail full. Basically all I’m saying is that I had my detector running 24-7 once I received it from MedCom (during the same timeframe of his 800+ readings) and did not pick up any spikes at my home, within 10 miles from his, and at only a slightly higher altitude….

Post 311 I was in touch with many agencies trying to get some data, even interviewing the EPA when the crazy readings for cesium came in for Hilo. In the end, when I saw the game more clearly (and that no “government expert” was going to do more than play with stats and jumble facts), I instead relied on the internet and the small community of concerned people — with a little discernible sorting through.

Here’s an example. In March 2012 I wrote geologist Donald Thomas at UH Manoa (who has written about radon in Hawai’i) regarding the high Uranium readings reported & linked them to the article dated April 29, 2011 at Oni Oni Dialogue (who was utilizing the EPAs RadNet for data). I simply wanted his thoughts. You’d think someone who speaks about the subject here in Hawaii might actually be interested. Then again, I think he makes most of his money trying to play down radon exposure in relation to geothermal in Puna on the Big Island… Here is my letter, and his – well, I thought it condescending – response:

On 3/15/2012 12:33 PM, Coconut Girl Wireless wrote:
Hi, I read the interesting comment regarding Radon in Hawaii http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/radon.html — not certain how old it is. I’m curious about your thoughts regarding this blog post, if you don’t mind looking at it: http://onioni2.blogspot.com/2011/04/plutonium-and-uranium-detected-in-us.html
Plutonium and Uranium Detected in the U.S.: The Highest Density in the Last 20 Years! California, Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam. Mahalo! coconutgirlwireless.wordpress.com

March 16, 2012 3:07:40 PM HST
Hi “Coconut Girl”
Thanks for your message. I did look at the blog post.
My thoughts on the blog post further confirm what is widely recognized in the hazards research community – that humans, even relatively intelligent and functional humans, are very poor at prioritizing risks. There are perceived risks and scientifically assessed risks, and it is very seldom that the level of perceived risks are anywhere near scientifically validated risks. There are both inadvertent biases as well as recognized and accepted (by the individual) biases that influence an individual’s perception of a specific risk. An inadvertent bias is one where where a lightening strike kills one or more individuals and the news media – as they seem more prone to do in recent years – recites every fatal lightening strike for the last fifty years; individuals who follow that media then believe that lightening strikes are a high-probability risk whereas motor vehicle accidents, because they don’t make headlines, are perceived as a lower risk. (Motor vehicle accidents don’t often make the headlines because they are so common – where lightening strikes make headlines because they are so rare.) Accepted biases apply to risks that individuals discount because they want to partake of that activity, or they derive income from that activity, or they derive some other perceived benefit from that activity. From your website, you surf: your risks from surfing – ranging from over exposure to sun (melanoma) to the risk of drowning – far exceed your risks from naturally occurring radioactivity or from the Japan nuclear release, but you choose, consciously or not, to discount those risks because you enjoy surfing. I bicycle for recreation and to commute to work: again, one of the most dangerous activities that is routinely engaged in by the average citizen – but I enjoy the physical benefits of the exercise and hope to prolong my life by maintaining a level of fitness consistent with longevity (however counter-intuitive that may be). I wouldn’t consider taking up surfing – too dangerous and I’ve lost too many friends to cancer (including melanoma) – and don’t get me started on smoking (of any kind)…

For better or worse, we’re all free to wallow in our own biases and, to a great extent, engage in our own selected dangerous entertainments. But the problem comes with setting public policy based on the shared paranoia by a small group of loud, and often sophisticated, individuals. Because decisions get made based on who is loudest and most sophisticated – and those less sophisticated and less loud are left to suffer the consequences. A good case in point: the Tohoku earthquake killed ~19,000 people with the vast majority dieing for one over-riding reason: they were inadequately educated on what to do when they felt intense earthquake shaking. How much coverage has been given to that fact? How many decision-makers have taken action to ensure that the public is educated about that and similar hazards? Now, how many people have died as a result of the radionuclide emissions from the Daiichi power plants – or to be even more broadly concerned, how many will die in the future as a result of the emissions? I would guess that that number would total not 10% of the death toll of the tsunami – and the nuclear paranoids are demanding that nuclear power be shut down completely. I’m reminded of Easter Island – paranoia turns into a religion, and pretty soon natural selection takes care of the rest.

Regards,
Don Thomas

There is a nuclear scientist in St. Louis (Potrblog) who has done the math and has determined that the Radon is coming from the corium in Fukushima hitting the ground and ground water in Fukushima, going airborne, and down the jet stream it is raining out as Radon daughters and other radionuclides. So, your “Radon” explanation does not adequately dismiss what is happening.

I’ll just say that I understand that people in Hawaii do not want to accept what is happening, just like many of the people in Japan and Fukushima did not want to accept what is happening, because it is not easy changing one’s life to accommodate what has happened. Be aware, the Nuclear industry are expert at picking and choosing what to disclose and how they disclose it to the public, as with the standard “radon” explanation.

Side note, I have noticed a lot of people on Kauai aging prematurely, quickly, over the past 2 years and the increasing number of people there with breathing problems, that should be the real tip off.

My choice of products changes often, but right now my shampoo/conditioners of choice are: John Masters Organics Zinc & Sage Shampoo with Conditioner (typically don’t like “combo” shampoo-conditioners but this one is the exception! great for Surfer Girls on the go. & smells amazing btw); Acure Argan Shampoo & Conditioner (mostly organic; biodegradable). Also use argan/hair oils & take Omegas3>6>9/consume coconut oil & water/ mineral drops + horsetail(silica). Yup, condition the hair from the inside and out!

Read the article tho for the best tips like getting your hair completely wet b4 exposing it to salt water. Good luck!