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That radiation monitoring station in Milford, Utah, is acting up again
by Andrew Kishner
June 20, 2008
Idealist.ws

Last summer, in July 2007, Utah's largest wildfire, dubbed the Milford Flat Fire, ripped through the Beehive state, leaving over 363,000 acres charred and causing the Milford pressurized ionization chamber or PIC, which records levels of gamma radiation in the air, to go haywire. The fire also caused harm, and even death, to motorists caught in the flames on Utah's highways.

The Milford PIC's recorded levels of gamma radiation back in July 2007 went so high that the software program installed by the DOE, which operates a network of over two dozen weather and radiation monitoring stations around the Nevada Test Site, couldn't even fit the spikes on the graph. That problem was never fixed. The DOE did, however, decide to replace Milford's PIC instrument in late 2007 when its scientists ultimately decided that a warped electronic component was to blame for the off-the-charts gamma readings, not Cold War fallout being resuspended by area wildfires. While downwinder groups maintained that Cold War fallout was involved to a degree, the DOE disagreed, however the feds had a hard time guessing what else could have been the culprit. Their flip-flopping began with their initial blame for the gamma spikes on radon gas being released by the fires, then at one point on extreme heat, and finally they settled on a malfunctioning electronic part.

Downwinder groups also maintained that the DOE didn't provide enough proof that there wasn't harmful radiation in Utah's air. The DOE's proof consisted of an 'independent' analysis of Milford's air filters by the University of Nevada that one toxic exposures expert publicly attacked, saying the analysis overlooked key questions such as how much alpha and beta radiation was released by the fires. The media, which at the onset gave unbiased coverage to both the DOE and downwinder groups, finally shut up when the DOE revealed a close-up photo of a warped electronic socket as 'proof' of the 'culprit' for the spikes. In truth, the PIC and the air filters were never truly 'independently' analyzed or troubleshooted and no lessons for improved public health were learned.

Fast forward to this summer, or technically late spring. On June 18, gamma readings in Milford reached the same high peaks it did in July last year although not for hours and hours and days and days. It lasted just under two hours. Between 11am and 1pm, the PIC in Milford recorded peaks just over 860 microRems - of gamma radiation - over two distinct 10-minute intervals. Interestingly, the high peaks are at about the same maximum levels they were last July (although values then, in actuality, went higher than the graph could plot). Also, the values were the highest in Milford since the event last summer.

The times mentioned above on June 18 didn't correlate with any extreme weather conditions, such as high temperatures, rapidly changing barometric pressure or precipitation, or even a fire. A fire did burn a few days before about 10 miles southeast of Milford, when the Cedar City Field Office of the BLM conducted a 250-acre prescribed burn. That fire seemed to be finally 'out' by June 17; smoldering likely continued into the next day.

Without better radiation monitoring, including the capability to detect in real-time alpha and beta particles, no one will ever know if the spikes on June 18th were the result of an alleged calibration error or an actual release from the Nevada Test Site. If it was a release (e.g., ventilating radioactive gasses from an underground test tunnel at the NTS), the gamma spikes may have been set off by the edge of a plume, meaning the radiation values could have been much higher elsewhere where there is no PIC. This is because the closest radiation monitoring stations to Milford are about 50 miles away to the north and south. That is a huge gap and leaves little assurances for safety when, or if, a plume ever floats over central or southern Utah. And if that plume contains alpha-emitting plutonium dust from the Nevada Test Site that the DOE's monitoring network doesn't have real-time ability to detect, then you'll have no way to find out today. Or tomorrow. Maybe the day after that. But that may be too late.

View the graph of gamma values on June 18 at Milford at this url:
http://www.idealist.ws/milfordjune182008-a-lrg2.gif 

More Graphs:
Graph 1
Graph 2
Graph 3

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Idealist's public document archives: 1. 2.

U.S. NUCLEAR tests: 128 A + 899 U in NV,
1 A in NM, 10 U (in NM, CO, AK, MS, central NV),
100+ A, U in Pacific, 3 A in S. Atlantic
(A=aboveground; U=Underground)

'The greatest irony of our atmospheric nuclear testing program is that 
the only victims of U.S. nuclear arms since World War II have been our own people.' 
- Forgotten Guinea Pigs Report, 1980

In 1986, the U.S. Dept. of Energy used the cover of the Chernobyl fallout cloud over the United States to release huge amounts of radiation into the air from a failed underground Nevada nuclear test. It was called Mighty Oak.

learn more on our global fallout page

 

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