TV: At height of Fukushima emergency, region in California where plume hit had NO monitors — Email shows EPA ‘decided’ not to deploy RADNET to area — Only one left broke as radioactivity began spiking — “No clue” about exposure levels (MAP)
ENENews
Left: Washington Post map of suspected path of Fukushima plume that hit California’s Central Coast; Right: Light blue dots are RADnet monitors that were not functioning
KION, Jan. 9, 2014: [...] when the plume was supposed to hit, there were no functioning RADnet monitors on the Central Coast. Hirsch said the EPA was going to deploy portable monitors. But look at the posted email from the EPA to air quality districts that were to monitor the portables. This was obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request by [University of California Santa Cruz lecturer Dan Hirsch]. [...] “EPA HQ has decided at this time to not deploy the deployable RADNET monitors to CA, OR and WA.” So at the height of the emergency the central coast, the very spot where the radioactive plume was supposed to hit the EPA had no working monitors for the air quality in Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo or Santa Barbara counties. Why? [...] we really have no clue how much radiation was in the air on the central coast in the days and weeks after the Fukashima [sic] accident. Hirsch said we do know from a monitor in Bakersfield, before it broke in mid-march, that radioactive air quality was spiking. [...] I’ve made a call to the EPA for comment on this they’ve yet to respond. Hirsch can only speculate that the EPA was worried about public hysteria over this and chose to now [not?] deploy the monitors.
Results from a sample of ocean water collected near the coast of Santa Barbara County on on March 22. 2011 is now available on the newly published map at www.ourradioactiveocean.org. Test results found 14.7 Bq/m³ of cesium-134 and -137. Other samples taken further off-shore in the weeks that followed also found cesium-134, which is used as a ‘fingerprint’ for determining whether the contamination originated from Fukushima Daiichi.
View all 2011 results on the map here
Published: January 25th, 2014 at 1:05 am ETBy ENENews |