This means that the dust reading in its entirety was over three times background. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers radiation three times background or above to be “significant.”
The California Highway Patrol maintains a three times background trip level to trigger a hazardous materials response by the agency. Hazmat protocols include use of respirators and other body and breathing protections when dealing with a radiation source ionizing at this level or above.
A spring 2015 examination performed April 17 at Radiation Station Santa Monica, which along with eight affiliated radiation stations across America and Australia have completed over 7,322 tests and reports since March 15, 2011, showed radiation at just 78.8 percent above normal.
The first tests of summer also indicate a high presence of alpha radiation which, by itself, comprised 75 percent of the overage with beta making up the other 25 percent. Indeed, the alpha detected alone was over 168 percent of background levels of radiation.
EnviroReporter.com has not found such a high degree of alpha in its sampling in thousands of previous tests conducted over the last four years.
Alpha radiation, which can be stopped by a piece of paper or plastic, is nevertheless the most dangerous to human health of the main different types of radiation: alpha, beta, gamma and X-ray. Ingestion through drink, water or breathing are the main pathways for alpha radiation into people and animals.
While alpha particles are positively charged and are relatively heavy, blocking them is easier than beta or gamma because they travel a short distance before losing energy. Nevertheless, alpha radiation is between 20 to 1,000 times more dangerous to the human organism due to its “relative biological effectiveness” in causing cell-death and cancer according to numerous sources.
EnviroReporter.com‘s periodic beta testing of dust acquired from three HEPA filter machines in Santa Monica is in response, in part, to the fact that the EPA’s Los Angeles RadNet beta detecting graphs online have been absent for several years. The L.A. RadNet gamma station appears to be continuing to function.
A June 1 tally of RadNet found only 37 out of 124 beta stations functioning across the United States and Puerto Rico. Large metropolitan areas like New York City, Boston and Chicago all have no beta detection graphs working. States like Florida, with five RadNet locations, have no operating beta graphs at all.
The working beta stations reveal four month highs were found across America. Hitting this dubious milestone included Montgomery Alabama, Tucson Arizona, San Bernardino County California, Hartford Connecticut, Fort Wayne Indiana, Baltimore Maryland, Grand Rapids Michigan, Concord New Hampshire, Toledo Ohia, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and Madison Wisconsin.
Beta radiation includes fission products from nuclear reactors including Cesium-134, Cesium-137 and Strontium-90. Massive amounts of these beta radionuclides have escaped into the air and Pacific Ocean at Fukushima Japan which is in its fifth year of an ongoing triple meltdown that began March 11, 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed most of a huge reactor complex there.
EnviroReporter.com has been testing various media for this escaped radiation ever since. Its highest detections of radiation in the environment came in late 2013 with rain ionization in Death Valley National Park coming in at dozens of times background.
Until the EPA ever gets its RadNet system fully operational, Americans will only have a partial idea of how ‘hot’ with radiation its air is. Failure to maintain this system leaves the country at a huge loss should radiological releases happen due to nuclear plant malfunctions and meltdowns as well as terrorism by an expanding list of American enemies who vow to destroy it.
BY THE NUMBERS:
Radiation Station Santa Monica, California USA
June 1, 2015
12:40 pm INT SAME HEPA DUST IN PLASTIC BAG – ALPHA TEST: 64.8 CPM^^ which suggests strong alpha radiation presence. A plastic bag will block alpha radiation meaning that of the background overage, beta was [64.8 – 41.5 =] 23.3 CPM^^. The total amount over background was [134.7 – 41.5=] 93.2 CPM^^. The amount of alpha radiation detected was this total minus the beta component of it [93.2 – 23.3 =] 69.9 CPM^^ The ALPHA RADIATION ALONE IS 168.4% OF BACKGROUND HIGHER which is astonishing.
12:25 pm INT RSSMC BG: 41.5 CPM^^
12:10 pm INT HEPA DUST from two HEPA filters, one Ionizer/HEPA filter from May 20 to today, or 43 days total: 134.7 CPM^^ which is 2.25 TIMES BACKGROUND HIGHER In just 61% of the time of the last period, the sample was 2.88 times higher over background than in the prior period.
May 20, 2015
4:45 pm INT HEPA DUST from two HEPA filters, one Ionizer/HEPA filter from March 11 to today, or 70 days total: 68.1 CPM^^ which is 78.8% ABOVE BACKGROUND which is just 20% of the radiation over background from the last period which was half as many days. This is a welcome reading and result.
4:30 pm INT RSSMC BG: 38.3 CPM^^
+++
June 1, 2015 Nationwide Radiation Report
BETA GRAPH ANALYSIS
Since our last report April 17, 2015 (below in archives), Montgomery AL soared to a four month high May 10 topping ~365 CPM; Anchorage AK saw its crucial beta monitoring cease March 24 but sputtered to life April 28 and shows June 1 to be a mild ~40 CPM; Fairbanks AK hit 150 CPM May 22; Phoenix AZ May Day was perhaps a good watch-word on May 1 with a ~520 CPM spike; Tuscon AZ hit a four month high May 12 with a sizzling ~435 CPM May 12; Little Rock AR registered ~135 CPM May 5; Fort Smith AR registered 100 CPM June 1; Anaheim CA‘s beta graph shows just ~45 CPM June 1 which is small consolation for their Anaheim Ducks’ historic debacle; Fresno CA smashed through previous highs hitting ~970 CPM November 11 and then the graph died December 2 leaving a huge hole in California airborne beta monitoring – as of June 1 it’s still blank but it’s gamma graph is active; Bakersfield CA hit ~440 CPM May 28; Los Angeles CA‘s beta graph stopped in March 2014 never to return in America’s second largest metropolitan. Our June 1 HEPA filter debris test found hot dust registering positive for alpha radiation which came in alone at 168.4% of background higher which is astonishing; Riverside CA‘s graph gave out September 15, 2014 never to return; San Bernardino County CA smashed through a four month high of ~610 CPM on May 8 which is about twenty times normal; San Diego no longer has a working beta graph because it died January 15 after months of erratic fits and starts but gone for good in a town with a huge Navy base which makes the station’s inoperability careless in the extreme; Hartford CT jumped to a four month high May 30 with ~125 CPM; Washington DC registered just ~35 CPM June 1; still not one beta monitor out of five works in Florida which is amazing and maybe because the gamma’s high activity suggests something really hot in the Sunshine State where citrus has tested positive for Fukushima-originated Cesium-134 since the meltdowns began; Augusta GA no longer has a working beta graph in a very active environment, unfortunately, giving out August 25, 2014 never to return; Ft. Wayne IN had a malfunctioning beta station from February 5 through March 9 but hit a four month high May 24 with a jolting ~340 CPM; Baton Rouge LA was just ~20 CPM June 1; Orono ME is the farthest functioning beta station away from the triple meltdowns at Fukushima Dai-ichi, Japan, and this lovely town has the lowest readings sometimes down into the single digits for days at a time like June 28 with it in the single digits around 9 CPM; Baltimore MD‘s beta and gamma graphs are now ‘on’ and functioning properly with the city hitting 200 CPM May 18, a four month high; Worcester MA blew through ~320 CPM September 28 and has spiked three times in November over 200 CPM and then its beta station died December 9 and then briefly be reborn Christmas Day only to die, for good, the next day and joined Boston in the dead beta graphs group; Grand Rapids MI got up to a four month high May 15 with ~175 CPM; St. Paul MN was blowing through 300-350 CPM regularly before its beta station died October 16, 2014 not to return in this important upper Midwest center until the last two days where it read a scant ~35 CPM June 1; St. Louis tested ~40 CPM June 1; Lincoln NE topped 300 CPM on May Day; Concord NH registered a four month high May 12 with ~195 CPM in an area with normal background around ~25 CPM; Albuquerque NM registered ~260 CPM May 7; Buffalo NY tested at 150 CPM May 30; New York City NY is not functioning as it hasn’t for years but its gamma gross count is sort of jumping around like LA’s gamma is – just one difference, NYC’s gamma is much more active which is one thing New Yorkers can brag about: they’re hotter than Los Angelenos even if their crucial beta station is on the fritz; Syracuse NY showed ~160 CPM November 26 and then the beta graph died December 1 and never came back plus its gamma station is poorly maintained as evidenced by the scant and inaccurate readings, dying once again completely May 5; Charlotte NC‘s graph died January 13 but came alive May 6 hitting ~145 CPM May 19; Raleigh NC hit ~170 CPM July 24, 2014 and cut out and still hasn’t come back on, a real loss in the South; Toledo OH hit a four month high May 8 with ~210 CPM; Corvalis OR was ~105 CPM June 1Pittsburgh PA soared to a four month high May 7 topping ~225 CPM; Puerto Rico‘s beta graph doesn’t work but the gamma remains somewhat active; Amarillo TX is one of the hottest sites in the country was just ~80 CPM last night after topping ~910 CPM April 27; Dallas TX spiked to ~245 CPM May 28; Ft. Worth was just ~40 June 1; Salt Lake City UT‘s beta station is still down since a huge beta increase over 200 CPM in early May 2014 and remains knocked out; and Madison WI hit peaked at a four month high May 25 with a chart-topping 350 CPM.
I live in Corvallis, OR and have been watching the RadNet station here for years. On at least two occasions, when the readings were getting “too high”, the graphs were tweaked down to make it appear everything is OK. Any value on its current graph must be multiplied by a factor of at least 4 to be correct.
Dear Michael Collins:
Many thanks for your clarifications to my queries of June 10.
I am unable to locate the name of the doctor at present, as my enquiry was some time ago. I imagine he was not yet aware of your site. I was suggesting to him opening a center in Los Angeles to provide people with inexpensive natural treatments to protect them from radioactive exposure (green, organic chlorophyll juices, miso, seaweed, turmeric — macrobiotic etc). The doctor did not think this would be enough, as the exposure was so high. I’m not sure if this is true or not, but why not have those things anyway? And obviously avoid meat/fish unless you test before eating. That being said, radioactivity can be in green juices/seaweed but the beneficial qualities still remain (i.e. I’ve heard they chelate some radioactivity regardless of the purity).
I’ve had mineral waters such as S. Pellegrino for years which is said to contain uranium with no ill effects. Obviously uranium isn’t bad in small qualities, especially with a lot of bicarbonate, but maybe I’m wrong about that.
The “peak” radiation was something I read on another site. Something to do with the arrival of large amounts of material in ocean currents from Japan in 2015.
All this is a shame to be happening to LA, one of the best places I’ve ever been to. I don’t know if radiation can alter the mental/spiritual plane, but certainly if we are effected by radiation from phone towers the Fukushima fallout will stop something in the mind’s intuitive possibilities. But there must be remedies for all this…
One product that could be of interest to you is one called : Geoclense. As well as neutralizing wi-fi it neutralizes atomic radiation. A plug in orgonium device.
The incredibly high levels of airborne radiation which Enviroreporter.com has been reporting on, month after month, for 5 years has me wondering whether there was a big meeting, in the White House Situation Room, after the scope of the radioactive releases at Fukushima was understood by the Washington nuclear community.
I can envision the script of that meeting, whether dramatized on House of Cards, West Wing or Veep. The President says to the big brains in the room “How can we protect our people from becoming ill from the Fukushima melt-down?” Various and sundry military and Executive Branch leaders chime in and say “We can’t. We’ve got to ignore it and hide it from the public, or it will “destroy the economy.” Those in the meeting decide, at the very least, to direct that EPA’s RadNet detector in Hawaii be disconnected, so the frowning President can “Go and think about this, in terms of advising the public or not.”
President Kevin Spacey, or President Martin Sheen or President Julia Louis Dreyfus go upstairs and think about it long and hard. Then, depending on the morality of the character they portray, they decide to “not tell the public” (Presidents Spacey and Dreyfus) or to talk to the American people in a calm way about what they’re facing (President Sheen).
Over the years, Enviroreporter’s statistical analysis has shown us what the real decision was, coming out of the Situation Room. Let the EPA’s RadNet system fail, not fix it or replace it, and say nothing.
That decision is not without precedent. That was the Soviet’s decision with respect to the effect of the Chernobyl explosion on the people of Ukraine, Southwest Russia and Byelorussia.
However, the people of that region figured it out anyway. The adults, rich and poor, have been dying of “Chernobyl Disease” since late 1986, and the genetically damaged children and grandchildren born in late 1986 and afterwards have largely been ignored.
The same thing is now happening in Japan. The ironic difference is that in Japan, (versus Russia, Ukraine or Belarus) it is illegal for anyone to breathe a word of of what is going on at Fukushima or going on around it, or how the public health is effected.
The hardest part of President Spacey/Dreyfus/Sheen’s decision is that our stubborn adult children, and their spouses, when they know the truth, will not believe what is happening to them or to our beloved grandchildren, because “It hasn’t been on the news” or “We can’t do anything about it.”
And today the L.A. Daily News runs a story in effect complaining that 14% of Los Angeles Unified School District’s students are “special education students” http://www.dailynews.com/social-affairs/20150620/nearly-14-of-lausd-students-in-special-education-programs The bean-counter-budget-jockeys complain about the same problem in Ukraine and Belarus too. Get used to it Daily News editors and FOXNews pundits, that number is going to go up in the future decades, not down.
Thank you for the obviously hard work that you do. We live in crazy times. The largest industrial accident in history, and no one pays any attention; the JP and US gov’ts completely ignore it and the threats to the health and safety of their citizens.
I will be aware when the other shoe drops, and taking care however I can. I wonder if a lot of care is needed, and how we’ll manage. I know we will somehow. It galls me that there’s nothing we can do in the meanwhile, that there’s no leverage with our governments and that we must simply wait it out.
It’s no use thinking about the future, today is enough. It’s a reminder to make ourselves strong in every way and appreciate life and each other. Full plate, that 😉 . Anyway, keep on keeping on and sorry for my rant!
THANK YOU FOR RESPONDING TO MY QUESTIONS RE FUKUSHIMA FALLOUT IN LOS ANGELES.
I HAVE A FEW MORE TO FOLLOW ON FROM THESE:
[Michael Collins: Regarding followup questions – You must read our website extensively to get the answers you need.]
1/ A doctor in Los Angeles has commented that he has found consistently high levels of radioactivity measured in many of his patients, and the results were shocking to him. How are you attempting to avoid this exposure or is it inevitable? Have you heard any anecdotal evidence of people getting ill due to this fallout in Los Angeles?
[MC: What doctor? Why hasn’t this person contacted us if you know about him? Re avoiding exposure, you have clearly not read our site much as we discuss this extensively. Yes, anecdotal evidence exists of people feeling effects of fallout on the West Coast.]
2/ Are any people you know considering moving away from Los Angeles given the so-called “peak” radiation fallout in 2015? What safeguards are you taking given this food-chain/atmospheric contamination?
[MC: What so-called “peak” radiation fallout in 2015? What are you basing that on? Yes, people have moved from Los Angeles because of this. Of course we have safeguards as explained extensively in Eat Me!]
3/ Is there any end in sight for the Fukushima situation? If the radiation is accruing in the US, at what point do you decide to leave, or will you remain there regardless?
[MC: No, there is no end in sight for the Fukushima disaster. Several environmental factors must come into play before we would move. We do not expect those factors to be so extreme as to necessitate that.]
Significant radiation over background in Los Angeles rain, half of which is alpha:June 9, 2015
9:35 pm SAME RAIN SAMPLE IN PLASTIC BAG: 43.8 CPM^^ or 5.1 CPM alpha radiation. Alpha makes up 52.6% of overage.
Sample #4 – 9:20 pm RAIN: 48.9 CPM^^ or 24.7% HIGHER THAN BACKGROUND
9:00 pm INT RSSMC: 39.2 CPM^^
8:00 pm SAME RAIN SAMPLE IN PLASTIC BAG: 63.3 CPM^^ or 5.7 CPM alpha radiation. Alpha makes up 21.9% of overage.
Sample #3 – 7:45 pm RAIN: 69.0 CPM^^ or 60.5% HIGHER THAN BACKGROUND
7:30 pm INT RSSMC: 43.0 CPM^^
4:55 pm SAME RAIN SAMPLE IN PLASTIC BAG: 54.1 CPM^^ or 14.1 CPM alpha radiation ALPHA ALONE 34.8% HIGHER THAN BACKGROUND. Alpha makes up 50.9% of overage and is not the product of radon daughters/progeny as proved in Beta Watch.
Sample #2 – 4:30 pm RAIN: 68.2 CPM^^ or 68.4% HIGHER THAN BACKGROUND
4:15 pm INT RSSMC BG: 40.5 CPM^^
Sample #1 – 8:15 am INT RAIN: 45.8 CPM^^ or background
8:00 am INT RSSMC BG: 43.6 CPM^^
for Michael Collins [who replies]:
1/ A general question: Since you live in LA, what do you do if you have to walk outside? Are you having to be continually cut-off from the environment to protect yourself from this problem?
[We walk outside./ No, of course not.]
2/ Also, have you registered radioactivity from the burning of waste in Japan hitting LA? Is this burning ongoing?
[We aren’t certain./ The huge amount of radioactive rubble targeted for incineration would seem to be large enough that the burning continues, we speculate.]
3/ Do ocean currents take the ocean-radioactivity from Fukishima down to the southern hemisphere (Australia etc)
[Yes, the ocean currents mix between the hemispheres but that is not definitive proof of Fukushima radioactivity per se. Other readings suggest otherwise.]
4/ Finally, as traveller would you suggest avoiding visiting Los Angeles because of the current dangers as specified in this discussion?
[No.]
@Jack: Reading comprehension is an important factor when making bold assertions. “If there was 20-1000 times more alpha exposure as stated…” is not what we wrote at all. We wrote that numerous sources have established that “[A]lpha radiation is between 20 to 1,000 times more dangerous to the human organism due to its ‘relative biological effectiveness’ in causing cell-death and cancer.”
Jack says that “the linear non-threshold risk model is junk science” when the National Academy of Science says it is not. Jack is asserting that radiation doesn’t harm you at low levels with this statement but NAS is a more trusted source than an anonymous commenter (who actually may be the head of a New England state’s radiation protection program according to a little research we did on the commenter, if you can believe that). “The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionized radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial,” said Richard R. Monson, the NAS panel chairman and a professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s School of Public Health in late July 2005.
Then here’s the disappointing kicker Jack tossed in: “[T]hen we would see thousands of excess cancers.. We do not.” Cancer has an approximate 5-20 year latency period before kicking in and we are just over 4 years from the beginning of the Fukushima meltdowns, if indeed this high alpha is from Japanese fission products flooding the Pacific. What you apparently don’t know Jack is that there has been an historic massive die-off of marine creatures in the Pacific this year as reported by numerous sources and is as obvious as the dead seals on Southern California beaches.
Regardless of three major comprehension and factual misstatements in your comment, Jack, we appreciate it anyway. We do not appreciate the taxpayer dime paying for personnel uttering such drivel when their apparent job is to keep the public safe from radiation.
If your results are correct then you are strengthening the argument that the linear non-threshold risk model is junk science. If there was 20-1000 times more alpha exposure as stated then we would see thousands of excess cancers.. We do not.
Michael Collins and Chase — Keeping in mind that Radiocesium is an indicator or ‘marker’ for the presence of a great deal many other radioisotopes from a nuclear accident:
World Health Organization. Health hazards from radiocesium following the Chernobyl nuclear accident: Report on a WHO meeting. Environmental Health. 24.
“Six… pathways are possible by which exposure may occur following a nuclear accident…” (pg. 4).
External:
Ground shine – Cloud shine – Deposition on skin and clothing
Internal:
Ingestion — Inhalation — Absorption from skin
“… root uptake of cesium will be substantially higher for acid soils with a low clay and a high organic matter content and may continue for many years in some soil conditions…. the external and internal doses will be roughly the same for the fifty year period after the accident.” (pg. 8-9).
“Direct exposure from deposited radionuclides together with the ingestion pathway was estimated to be three orders of magnitude greater than that from inhalation or exposure to airborne radionuclides (cloud shine).” (pg. 23).
[2-3 orders of magnitude = 1,000x]
Radioprotection choices include N95 face masks, perhaps both wet and dry:
supplements that help to block absorption of radioisotopes include calcium/magnesium combo, potassium rich foods, and anti-oxidants (Vit C , toconetriols as in Vit E… to bolster our bodies’ repair mechanisms;
and, according to Dr. Rosalie Bertell the addition of spirulina or drinking distilled water between meals helps to attract and eliminate radioisotopes.
my hypothesis:
more radioisotopes in the water – ocean spray — will increase concentration of radioisotopes that are re-suspended into that moist air — all part of normal climate patterns and hydrological processes.
As inland temperatures heat up, cool moist air pulled up from the ocean and over coastal areas – breezy fog – is nature’s air conditioner.
includes reference material on radioisotopes and resuspension from ocean to land thru hydrological processes:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/marushka-france/where-does-fukushima-go-pacific-and-atmosphere/10151889492501649
The most obvious sources are the Diablo Canyon NPP which still operates (it should be closed) and still emits radionuclides into the atmosphere and into the ocean. Even San Onofre (now closed) will continue to emit radiation during the decades long decommissioning process. And they store right next to I-5 the radioactive equivalent of 20,000 Hiroshima bombs. According to the new EPA GEIS plan, this waste will remain on site for the indefinite future. No politician or agency in CA has the courage to look into possibilities of moving it to safer remote temporary site away from populated areas. Everything from LA to San Diego is toast if anything goes wrong. This waste dump sits squarely in the middle of Darrell Issa’s District 49 yet he remains uninformed and unengaged and doesn’t care. That’s why the locals call it “The Darrell Issa Nuclear Waste Dump.” (See the Survey Monkey Poll where Issa received 92% of the vote for the name.)
@Chase: We are also puzzled by this high alpha. Meltdown deniers dismiss alpha as something that can be stopped by paper or skin. True enough. But what about the alpha that gets around that paper or skin and into your mouth, lungs or eyes? We aren’t kidding when we say it is 20- 1,000 times more biologically dangerous than beta and gamma. Two major points: Look at all the down RadNet stations and not one tiny bit of effort by the EPA to remedy it and look how we collected the sample and note that without those HEPA machines we’d be breathing in that captured alpha just like millions of our neighbors are.
😐
This is a significant change. Thank you for the summary.
“EnviroReporter.com has not found such a high degree of alpha in its sampling in thousands of previous tests conducted over the last four years.”
– Michael Collins
What is the increased alpha possibly indicating?
IMO – It indicates that… the ongoing global catastrophe at Fukushima is obviously not improving nor is it going to be any time soon.
People should be aware and prepared. Exactly what that means, I’m not so sure. I guess when the Kardashians start wearing ‘masks’ as a fashion statement, then maybe people will catch on.
I wish the EPA wasn’t a farce.
I wish lungs had replaceable filters. 🙁