NEI Nuclear Notes

Uh-oh. The level of Iodine-131 found at the Queen Lane treatment plant is the highest of 23 sites in 13 states where the particles have appeared following the massive radiation leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. Lower levels were found at the city's two other plants. Er: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told the Daily News yesterday that Philadelphia water samples from last August contained nearly twice as much radioactive iodine as the recent samples collected after the Fukushima disaster. Although numbers aren’t given, I’m going to take a guess and say that in neither instance was the level of iodine-131 high enough to raise a danger flag. No harm in being careful, of course. From the Philadelphia Daily News. --- Always on the lookout for interesting anti-nuclear energy editorials and op-eds, I’ve actually come up rather short. Sometimes, the ones I find are so weak that I don’t want to highlight them. It’s no fun smacking...

From NEI’s Japan earthquake launch page: UPDATE AS OF 9:30 A.M., MARCH 26 Japanese scientists yesterday detected higher levels radioactive iodine in seawater at water outlets near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. “ Iodine 131 was detected at a level 1,250 times the national safety limit,” Hidehiko Nishiyama of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said during a news conference. Officials said there is no immediate danger to residents near the plant from these levels. Samples taken on Friday were significantly higher than those taken on Wednesday, which had 147 times the legal concentration of I-131. Authorities said the concentration of radioactive materials in the water will decrease as the water is diluted by ocean currents. Indeed, a sample taken at 8:50 a.m. on Friday had one-fifth the concentration of I-131 as the earlier measurement. Three subsequent measurements that morning showed fluctuation. All were below the highest level found at 8:30 a.m. on Friday....

Here’s the bottom line first: no one in the United States is in danger from iodine-131, a radioactive isotope present in discharges from Fukushima Daiichi. No one needs potassium iodide to combat it because there is no danger of it. Got it? Let’s proceed: NEI has a new fact sheet on iodine-131, about which Japan has issued a warning. This is from NEI’s update this morning and posted below: Japanese authorities have advised Tokyo residents not to provide municipal drinking water to infants or use it in mixing powdered milk for infants because of abnormal levels of radioactive iodine (I-131) detected in the drinking water. One water sample (5,700 picocuries per liter) indicated approximately twice the Japanese government guideline and prompted the restriction for infants. In an emergency in the United States, state and local officials would closely monitor food and drinking water supplies and quarantine any contaminated supplies as needed to prevent public exposure. U.S. offici...