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Paper: Group wants radiation tests done in Canada — Health Canada calls 300 times background levels of iodine-131 “minute”

Published: August 11th, 2011 at 1:46 pm ET
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Citizen group wants radiation tests done in Canada, Georgia Straight (Vancouver), August 11, 2011:

A Vancouver woman wants Canadian governments held more accountable for protecting public health in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis. In an August 8 interview at the Georgia Straight office, Isabel Budke pointed out that citizens and nongovernmental organizations can exert a great deal more pressure on Health Canada and other regulators to improve monitoring, measuring, and reporting on radiation levels in water, soil, and food.

“I really think we need to have localized and regional testing because, from what I understand, the plumes that have drifted over the Pacific Ocean with this radiation are touching down on different areas in different ways, depending on where the jet stream is going and what weather conditions are,” Budke said. “We can’t rely on testing results from the United States or testing that has been done somewhere else in the country. I think we need to have our own testing in B.C.”

Budke, who has an SFU master’s degree in environmental and resource management, said that if governments won’t do this work, she wants the public to work collaboratively to have food, soil, and water tested. Her group has created a “Canadian Network for Radiation Awareness & Monitoring” website, which will post results from citizen-initiated laboratory tests.

Last week, the Straight reported that on March 20, a Health Canada monitoring station in Sidney, B.C., detected iodine-131 at more than 300 times the background level. Despite this, Health Canada spokesperson Stéphane Shank told the Straight on August 9 from Ottawa that air-monitoring stations have shown that radiation levels are “minute” and pose “no risk” to Canadians.  [...]

Read the report here.

Published: August 11th, 2011 at 1:46 pm ET
By
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24 comments

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August 11th, 2011 | Tags: , , , , , , | Category: Canada
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24 comments to Paper: Group wants radiation tests done in Canada — Health Canada calls 300 times background levels of iodine-131 “minute”

  • odylan
    August 11, 2011 at 2:23 pm

    WTF??? This looks deadly serious. Looks like maybe a meltdown in progress!

    http://fukushima-diary.com/category/dnews showing nuclear power station at Fukui (on west coast i.e. opposite coast to Fukushima) red flagged at 2.59uSv/h


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  • odylan
    August 11, 2011 at 2:27 pm

    Looks like it was shut down during emergency on 15th July, so what’s going on?


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  • arclight arclight
    August 11, 2011 at 2:34 pm

    what a wonderful willful woman!! 10 out of 10!!

    “I’ve been wondering as I was walking in the rain in April and in May: how radioactive is our rain in Vancouver?” she continued. “And there is just no information. And I’ve been wondering: is this accumulating in our soil, and is the radioactivity being taken up by plants that we grow on our soil and that animals are eating, such as cows?…And I’ve been wondering about other things, such as fruits and vegetables and mushrooms. And I’ve been wondering about seafood that swims around in the Pacific Ocean.”

    shame she didnt back up her hypothesis with the evidence on the euactive site of april 11 for pregnant women and young children! and its still there! CRIIRAD have done little testing recently that i could find. they have, though, 700000 signatures on their request for governments to release the radiological data that they hold…well done iaea! i feel so much safer knowing your cleansing the information! you dont have a liason manager that works with WPP? just wondering? none of your managers didnt do stints with the iaea, did they! its not on thier linkdin profiles is it? your not going to ask them to edit thier profiles are you? just wondering?
    (that should stimulate some action! har har! nice for you guys to be on the backfoot for a change?) oh and did i hear a percentage drop in the shares there? lol
    peace


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  • zaneinvernon
    August 11, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    What good is a government that doesnt even protect its own people?


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  • NeverAnyDanger
    August 11, 2011 at 8:40 pm

    “Canadian Network for Radiation Awareness & Monitoring” That’s a great site. We need something like that here. I’ve also wondered about what kind of dust I may have brought in my house on the days the plume flew over. I also wonder how much radiation is steaming out of Fuku every day and how much comes over here. On the Canadian Network page it says “Over an estimated one billion bequerels of radioactivity are said to continue to leak from the plant each day.”

    I haven’t seen any estimation like this anywhere. Don’t bequerels usually have some volume attached with them?


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  • zaneinvernon
    August 12, 2011 at 4:44 am

    Hi NeverAnyDanger

    Bequerals relate to the activity of decay, Basicially as I understand it in every second bequerals count how many atoms are falling apart by losing pieces.
    Its all crap science when its quantified as “over an estimated” The comment could be one or a billion as they say and be accurate. It means Fukushima plant is glowing with radioactivity.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becquerel


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    • Misitu
      August 12, 2011 at 6:54 am

      Becquerels per hour, per square metre, or per kilogram, are all valid measurements: respectively rate, unit area, or unit volume.


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      • Misitu
        August 12, 2011 at 7:02 am

        In a way you are right about crap science.

        On one hand, because the measurements are not enough in terms of quantity to provide any accurate detail, I would agree about crap because there are not enough facts deduced from the few measurements.

        On the other, it IS valid to use probabilities in nuclear physics because at the subatomic level probability “rules”. After one half life for example half a kg of the original kg of uranium (or iodine 131, or whatever) will be left, but you will not be able to predict which half kg. The same goes for sublethal exposure of biologies to ionising radiation. This is the real science bit.

        The applied science bit, which may or may not be crap, is the stuff about sieverts and rems which are measurements of the ESTIMATED effect of ionising radiation on biologies (e.g. human beings), and the effect depends on the tissue, the amount of type of radiation, and other factors: this is crap science in that it is imperfect and “being improved all the time”, but it’s necessary applied science because it is the best method available to help people avoid radiation damage.

        But your conclusion is to me sensible and I agree that the locality is no place for a biological entity to be.

        Thanks.


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