• The job of cleaning up the radioactive mess at Fukushima has found its way into the hands not of TEPCO (Tokyo Electric) employees, but rather a collection of large companies.
   
• Those large companies put RFQ’s out on the wire for smaller contract labor companies to bid on.

• Smaller contract labor companies won the bids despite having no experience working with nuclear materials. “A common complaint: the project’s dependence on a sprawling and little scrutinized network of subcontractors – many of them inexperienced with nuclear work and some of them, police say, have ties to organized crime.”
   
• Hundreds of smaller firms have employees working in areas around the mangled nuclear power plant cleaning up radioactive debris, soil and dirt… and TEPCO has gone on record saying it has a hard time monitoring the hiring practices and working conditions brought forth by many of those smaller companies. As stated by one the Fukushima clean up employees, “Even then, his handlers told him, the radiation would be so high it could burn through his annual exposure limit in just under an hour.”
   
• TEPCO has recently admitted that the clean up effort has 25% more jobs available than applicants. Those outside the situation believe this may have resulted in clean up firms stepping “… into the gap, recruiting people whose lives have reached a dead end or who have trouble finding a job outside the disaster zone.”
   
• Apparently, Japan’s nuclear industry has relied on a group called “nuclear gypsies” for construction of several of its nuclear power plants since possibly the 1970’s… and that members of that same migrant labor force have come around to clean up the Fukushima site.
   
• Many of the companies currently involved with the Fukushima clean up effort grandfathered out of legislation requiring screenings and checking of credentials. “… contractors working on decontamination have not been required to disclose information on management or undergo any screening.”
   
• Rumors of Yakuza (Japan’s dominant crime syndicate) involvement with a number of the contract labor companies involved in the clean up project have surfaced.

Not so sure about YOU, but we see a NUCLEAR problem with this mess. Pun intended.

Given the potential ramifications for the Pacific Ocean if the Fukushima site does not get cleaned up quickly and properly, and of the plant not correctly getting shut down to safe levels in a timely and safe manner, one would think that the rest of the world would pressure the Japanese Government into taking action to organize the rat’s nest of contractors at the site.

But, as the article we read said about the use of contract labor in Japan, “There’s been a century of tradition of big Japanese companies using contractors, and that’s just the way it in Japan.”

For more details on the situation, because we certainly could not have included them all in this simple article, we suggest reading the source article on Yahoo.

Moral of the story?

As we stated several times in the past, we suggest bringing a Geiger counter with you the next time you go out for sushi!

A (not-so) recent (anymore) report from the contaminated reactor site stated that as much as 110 gallons of highly radioactive water may have accidentally spilled from a rainwater overflow tank and found its way into the Pacific Ocean.

What caused the leak? Heavy rainfall in the region caused rainwater collection tanks to overflow — and apparently some of the large containers lacked level gauges so workers could not easily monitor content levels.

Officials believe the leaked water carried a radioactive load of around 580,000 becquerels per liter and contained both cesium and strontium. The latter, if consumed, may accumulate in a person’s bones where it will irradiate its surroundings continuously. That radiation will more than likely result in the formation of cancer cells.

By comparison, health and safety officials state that ‘safe’ drinking water ought to have no more than 10 becquerels per liter.

Moral of the story?

In addition to worrying about mercury accumulating in our systems if we enjoy certain types of seafood on a regular basis, we must now turn the lights off before we eat sushi… to make certain it doesn’t glow in the dark!

Just kidding about glowing in the dark, but we think you catch our drift. We may, however, borrow a Geiger Counter from our survival stash to take with us the next time we go out for sushi, though.

Today we read an article on Yahoo that contained seemingly one piece of bad news after another. For your convenience we will attempt to highlight the horrors taking place at the crippled TEPCO controlled nuclear power plant below:

• Earlier this week workers at the Fukushima site reported finding levels of known radioactive (and carcinogenic) materials like strontium in well water samples taken very recently. Health experts say materials like strontium build up in bones where they may eventually cause cancer.
   
• TEPCO stated that it now seems pretty likely that contaminated water leaking from the Fukushima site may have reached underground waterways that take water from land out towards the sea and testing of some ground water samples showed concentrations of up 3,200 becquerels per liter. By comparison, drinking water ought not contain more than 10 becquerels of radioactivity per liter.
   
• In a statement made previously, personnel at the Fukushima site stated that around 300 tons of mildly polluted water runs into the Pacific Ocean each day in underground currents of ground water — and now tests show that unsafe levels of radioactive materials may exist as unwanted component of that continually flowing river of pollution into the Pacific Ocean.
   
• The recent news of ground water contamination greatly complicates the plan of putting in an ‘ice barrier’ around the plant to keep ground water from becoming contaminated.
   
• Samples of ocean water taken from offshore locations have not (yet) turned up positive for contamination.
   
• TEPCO and the Japanese Government have both stated that they would entertain discussions with non-Japanese sources regarding possible solutions for the Fukushima radioactive waste water situation.

The article also mentioned Tokyo, Japan’s successful bid to host the 2020 Olympics… but honestly WE DON’T CARE about the 2020 Olympics when something desperately needs to get done to stop the flow of radioactive water and materials into the Pacific Ocean.

Let us not forget how Godzilla ‘supposedly’ got mutated: Radioactivity. At this point no one seems to know WHAT’s on the full list of radioactive materials that has already made its way into subterranean waterways headed into the ocean OR exactly WHERE all those contaminants have gone — except out into the sea… someplace… they think.

Coming to a beach near you…

Anyone who believes waste products from the Fukushima reactor site cannot reach their country needs to spend a few minutes researching past and present news stories about debris from the 2011 tsunami in Asia washing up on shorelines all around the world.

Moral of the story?

Stay tuned for more bad news, folks… More. Bad. News.

OK, so Sal’s inquiry resembled an angry statement more than it did a question, but he did raise a good point: Why DO we sell radiation detectors on a site that focuses mainly on water quality and water quality testing?

Rather than bore you with a long, drawn out explanation about how radioactive materials may naturally find their way into the water supply, we will instead provide you with a few pieces of information taken from an article we read recently:

• Hydraulic fracturing activity in Pennsylvania has generated waste that contains radioactive material.
   
• Data collected from water samples taken at and around the certain facilities in New York State that accepted Pennsylvania’s fracking leachate… has come under fire since a Syracuse laboratory very recently plead guilty to one felony count of mail fraud that quite possibly involved 3,300 falsified water tests and that laboratory performed a number of the tests at the facilities.
   
• Radioactive materials occur naturally in shale formations with concentrations varying from well to well and from formation to formation. Some experts believe the Marcellus Shale Formation could possibly contain the highest concentration of all the United States’ shale formations.
   
• Fracking waste includes brine, chunks of rock and ‘drilling mud’ which all could contain higher than desirable levels of radium isotopes in cluding one called Radium 226 which proves particularly worrisome since it dissolves in water — and could therefore travel quite far from the well site and/or dumping area during a good rainstorm.
   
• In this case Pennsylvania started looking into the matter of radioactivity and fracking waste in the beginning of 2013. New York State has started no such inquiry. Coincidentally, a certain company that manages fracking waste in Pennsylvania recently asked a landfill across the border to begin accepting fracking waste 49 percent faster than it had in the past.

The article goes into additional details about the situation in a community 80 miles south of Rochester and we suggest you read the full article so you can get the whole story.

Getting back to Sal’s question, though, tap water really ought not contain radioactive material. More than likely very few municipal water systems dispense drinking water that contains radioactive matter since things like that get monitored on a regular basis… BUT what about private water wells that NEVER get monitored for radioactive material?

Remember that part in the article about Radium 226, a naturally occurring radioactive material that dissolves in water? What if a person lives in an area where this material exists naturally under the ground in rock formations?

As ground water makes its way through rock formations containing Radium 226 and possibly to a well’s intake it likely picks up Radium 226 along the way… and carries it up to the surface where unsuspecting homeowners will use it for drinking, cooking, bathing, irrigation of foodstuffs, watering of livestock, etc.

Oh, and as you read in the article referenced above, companies responsible for disposing of potentially radioactive materials taken from hydraulic fracturing sites apparently have an interest in getting rid of those materials any way they can BEFORE the government catches them red-handed — or better yet, until the government catches them with glowing red hands.

Again, not totally unexpected given the manner in which TEPCO surreptitiously (and many say incompetently) attempted to contain the radiation leaving the Fukushima site.

An article we ran across this morning published on Monday had this to say:

• Ten workers at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant conducting cleanup activities at the site tested positive for exposure to small amounts of radiation.
   
• As of the time that article’s publishing, officials did not know how or when the workers became contaminated, though the term ‘radioactive dust’ did get mentioned as a possibility.
• Power and cooling systems at the nuclear facility became damaged and/or destroyed as a result of the March 2011 earthquake and resultant tsunami that wreaked havoc on the region.
   
• Large amounts of radiation escaped containment as a result of the earthquake and tsunami and TEPCO engineers on-site still have not gotten the plant’s leaks fully contained.
   
• Experts have installed temporary equipment to help keep the reactor(s) cool but power issues and water leaks have hampered containment efforts.

Personally, we wonder exactly HOW MUCH radiation has escaped this facility and in what form. Mostly as runoff water from the facility or did a fair amount escape in an airborne manner (i.e. as dust carried away by winds)?

No matter what, we don’t suspect that no one will want to swim in the ocean anywhere near that facility for many years to come, if ever again. Plus, given the fact that TEPCO seems to have attempted to keep some (disturbing) facts about site cleanup efforts out of the spotlight for so long, we suspect a lot more (disturbing) information will come to light in the coming months.

And in conclusion?

We intend to keep personal radiation monitors in the Emergency Preparedness/Readiness Kits we have in our homes.

Officials quickly stated that the accidental discharge of the radioactive material (trace amounts of tritium, cesium and cobalt) into Lake Michigan posed no risk to human health since the water did not contain a whole lot of radioactivity to begin with and got massively diluted before entering the lake.

Although workers did successfully stop the leak and prevent any further contamination of the lake by radioactive water from the plant, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission did shut the plant down once they discovered the leak.

You can read more about this story here.

Water Testing Blog’s take on all this…

After a little research we learned that this power plant had several other mandatory shutdowns prior to this one and that caused us to think the following thoughts:

• Why has this facility had so many problems?
• The NRC had its eye on this plant for past violations/concerns so it caught wind of the leak and addressed the matter relatively quickly. How many leaks of “slightly radioactive water” from power plants not on the NRC’s immediate watch list go undetected for long periods of time before anyone catches on?
• Despite the reported small quantities of cobalt, cesium and tritium, diluting contaminants does not change the fact that contaminants have entered the environment.

• Here in the United States we (supposedly) have inspectors actively checking up on nuclear power plants to make sure they follow the rules and have equipment that functions properly… but what about overseas? What sort of inspection schedules and government oversight exist in other countries with smaller budgets?

Needless to say we scared ourselves to the point of getting chills down our spine.

Testing for radiation

In movies you will see people walking around with complicated looking devices that also appear to cost a small fortune… but in real life the average person can pick up a reliable, easy-to-use radiation detector for under $300.

As an example, in the Water Test Kit Store you will find both the DX-1 Radiation Detector and the DX-2 Radiation Detector manufactured by Industrial Test Systems, a US based company.

The DX-1 meter detects radiation levels between 0 mR/hr and 10 mR/hr while the DX-2 meter detects radiation levels between 0 mR/hr and 100 mR/hr.

Both meters work equally well as front line radiation monitoring tools and both come with a 1 year warranty on the detector tube and a 5 year warranty on the electronics. Warranty serviced directly by the manufacturer, not some off-the-wall random electronics shop.

Today we read an article called “Water testing for uranium expanding in Juliette” that described how recent testing had detected higher than acceptable levels of uranium in drinking water samples pulled from various residential water wells in the region.

A few highlights from the article:

• Testing over the past few years has detected unsafe levels of radon in the air and water in a higher than normal number of Juliette residences.
   
• As a result of past findings, University of Georgia graduate students have started a program of heavy metals testing in some homes and the Georgia Department of Public Health has started a broader radioactivity sampling recently at locations previously found to have contained uranium in the water or radon in the air.
   
• Some feel the uranium problem may have come from the burning of certain types of coal at a nearby coal-fired power plant.
   
• Uranium occurs naturally in bedrock and a lot of that material lies under the area.
   
• Information obtained from voluntary health surveys so far does not indicate the presence of illness or symptom clusters — except for 50% of respondents reporting high blood pressure and 25% of residents mentioning breathing/respiratory concerns.
   
• Half of the wells tested so far contained levels of uranium in excess of levels considered unsafe by government agencies.
   
• Eating or swallowing uranium can result in kidney problems — USEPA.
   
• Inhaled radon ranks as the number one cause of lung cancer in non-smokers — USEPA.

Pretty scary stuff regardless of where the uranium and radon came from. But, as the article did point out, at least government and health officials have taken an interest in the matter and additional testing will take place.

In the meantime, however, and also as the article pointed out, local residences have had to abandon the use of their wells and rely on bottled water until the necessary funds to pay for the expansion of a nearby public water system to areas currently affected by tainted well water.

Testing for uranium in drinking water?

We suggest leaving this sort of testing to the experts since you will most definitely want third party evidence in court if you ever need to go after a company for negligence or damages. Most water testing laboratories with proper certification can perform that sort of testing or recommend one that does.

Testing for radon?

Concerned citizens with worries regarding radon can purchase radon in air and radon in water test kits from a web site ( TestProducts.Com) operated by National Safety Products.

Both tests require laboratory analysis of the test kits after use BUT the cost paid for either of the kits includes the cost for lab testing. The basic radon in air test kit costs around $12 and the basic (short term) radon in water test kit costs around $25.

Moral of the story?

Like arsenic, another naturally occurring well water contaminant that can appear seemingly without warning in one’s ground water, you will not know of their presence without testing since neither of the unwanted contaminants has a distinct taste or odor — potentially making them silent killers if their presence goes undetected for too long.

1. As a chance to learn more about a topic and alter our views if necessary because we found out new information.

2. As a chance to learn more about a topic and provide additional information we may not have already known about the topic here on the Water Testing Blog.

Today’s difference of opinion came to us from a gentleman by the name of ‘Keith’ who wrote, “You stated ‘Radon gas in homes can wipe out whole families and the victims never even know the gas existed before it happens. ‘ This is total B.S. I have studied Radiation effects in people since 1969 and there is no known case of this ocurrance. Prove it.”

First of all, thank you, Keith for contacting us.

Upon reading our own statement, perhaps we may have over-dramatized things a tiny bit, but then again, perhaps not. According to a page on the United States Environmental Protection Agency web site (https://www.epa.gov/radon), “Radon is estimated to cause about 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year, according to EPA’s 2003 Assessment of Risks from Radon in Homes (EPA 402-R-03-003).”

The numbers of deaths from other causes are taken
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s
2005-2006 National Center for Injury Prevention
and Control Report and 2006 National Safety Council Reports.

The EPA’s web site goes on to say, “Radon is estimated to cause many thousands of deaths each year. That’s because when you breathe air containing radon, you can get lung cancer. In fact, the Surgeon General has warned that radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States today. Only smoking causes more lung cancer deaths. If you smoke and your home has high radon levels, your risk of lung cancer is especially high.”

So, while radon doesn’t run up into homes with both barrels of a shotgun blazing as it takes human life, it does seem to kill quite a few people — with both the USEPA and Surgeon General of the United States in agreement that radon poses a significant health risk to humans.

Looking for additional resources related to radon? You may want to browse through Radon Resources.

We couldn’t have made this kind of thing up even if we tried. Scientists have hypothesized that the lack of any industrial applications using that specific isotope leaves few options other than human waste from patients receiving radiation treatment for cancer as the source of contamination.

For more information on this topic, you can read the whole article here.

While no at-home test kits exist to test for the type of iodine mentioned in the above article, some do exist for testing levels of ‘regular’ iodine which occasionally shows up in drinking and industrial water.

As an example, the SenSafe Iodine Test Strips can detect concentrations as low as .02 ppm without the need for messy reagents, advanced testing techniques or expensive meters.

SenSafe’s Iodine Test Strips

Now we come to our favorite part:The Moral of the Story

Whether the result of irresponsible actions on the part of industry, poor enforcement of environmental codes on the part of government bodies, or the unintentional discharge of questionable contaminants such as pharmaceuticals into the water supply by any person who takes medications, the fact remains that our drinking water MAY contain any number of potentially dangerous contaminants at any given time.

Simply put, the folks who designed and built the bulk of our water treatment facilities could not have planned for many of the potential drinking water contaminants we could find in our water supply today because we, as a culture, didn’t even know they existed until recently.

Therefore, Water Testing Blog continues to believe that a thorough testing of one’s water by a certified water testing company such as National Testing Labs, or one suggested by your local health department, followed by the proper installation of the correct home water treatment device(s) will always make sense.

The detection of radioactive material in well water, though it sounds scary, does not always mean people ought not drink the water… as residents in Darlington County, South Carolina have recently found out.

DARLINGTON—The Darlington County Water and Sewer Authority has taken a well that supplies drinking water to some county residents out of service after tests by state health officials found levels of naturally occurring radioactive contaminants that exceeded the maximum level allowed by the state.

But officials with the agency say the water is still safe to drink.

…

Officials have taken the well with the highest level of contamination out of service, according to the notice. If authority officials are able to reduce the level of contaminants in that well, it may go back into service. If not, it will remain out of service, according to Jerry Stutts, operations manager for the water and sewer authority.

Water from the two remaining wells is being blended with water from two other water treatment plants to reduce the levels of contaminants, Stutts said.

…

Tests by DHEC at the end of December found levels of two radioactive materials, Radium 226 and Radium 228, that exceed the maximum contaminant level set by the state, according to Stutts. Both are naturally occurring elements in the earth, Stutts said. As ground water moves through underground aquifers, the two elements are absorbed in the water, the agency’s public notice to customers says.

The average level of the two elements found in the tests was 6.1 picocuries per liter. The maximum allowable level is 5.0 picocuries per liter, Stutts said.

A picocurie is a small amount of radioactivity associated with about one trillionth of a gram (a picogram) of radium, according to the notice to customers.

The notice to customers said there is no immediate risk from the contaminants but said that some people who drink water containing Radium 226 and Radium 228 in excess of the maximum contaminant level over many years may have an increased risk of cancer. (source )

The levels of radiation picked up in the testing sound pretty low, if you ask us, but we commend the health officials in Darlington County, South Carolina for taking prompt action and notifying residents of the situation.

Another Water (and Air) Invading Substance…

Radon gas in homes can wipe out whole families and the victims never even know the gas existed before it happens. Therefore, we suggest all home owners check for the presence of radon gas on the first floor and in basements a few times a year, with more frequent testing preferred.