20 Radioactive Dangers We All Face

1. Nuclear reactors crashing on Earth from space 
and fallout from:
2. Pacific nuclear testing
3. the Nevada Test Site
4. High-altitude nuclear tests 
5. Project Rulison
6. Mighty Oak nuclear test
7. North Korea's nuclear tests
8. Global nuclear testing
9.  'Project 57' (Area 13) 
10. Trinity, WSMR & Steel

11. Hanford & INL & LANL
12. Nuclear Power
13. DTRA's Divine Strake's babies 
14. Fallout resuspension: Milford Flat Fire 
15. Australia's fallout and duststorms
16. Hiroshima & Nagasaki
-and-
17. Low-level radiation impacted viruses
18. Radioactivity in drywall (dust) 
19. Nuclear waste transport
20. Greenham Common

LAS VEGAS RADIATION ANOMALY 

March 22, 2010 - Gamma values shot up over 8x background in Las Vegas on March 18, 2010 

For about 10 days from March 12 through March 22, 2010, gamma radiation values recorded by a Community Environmental Monitoring Program (CEMP) station outside the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, yielded strange-looking patterns on software-generated graphs.  From March 12 to March 18th, maximum gamma values in Las Vegas spiked to 5 to 6 times background radiation levels over several 10-minute periods from the late morning to the early afternoon (average gamma readings, however, didn't fluctuate at all, but the minimum gamma readings were all negative values (-20, -30 uRem/hr)!!).   

On March 18, at 10 A.M. local time, average gamma levels - which rarely ever fluctuate in Vegas from the background level of 10 microRem/hour - shot up to 84 microRem/hour, which is over 8 times background levels, for at least one 10 minute period. 

For the next few days, maximum values of gamma radiation continued to soar.¹  On March 21, it became sufficiently clear that a computer malfunction was setting in: many data variables² from the Las Vegas CEMP station were disappearing then reappearing on the graphing function and maximum air temperature, and other data variables, were rising to incredible values: temperature values began 'acting up' late on March 19 and through March 22 readings surpassed 400 degrees Fahrenheit!  Other variables also showed bizarre values.³

Because most CEMP data values were 'acting up' starting on March 19th or 20th, it is possible that a progressive electrical or computer malfunction was reaching a critical point on March 18th and only the gamma radiation detection device called the Pressurized Ionization Chamber (PIC), the most sensitive equipment of all the devices in the CEMP station, was the first to 'act up.'  So, we could understand that the gamma values would act up on the 18th (before the rest) and even 'part-time' during the preceding week - as early as March 12 - as the electrical or computer malfunction was worsening.   

Around 4:00 pm local time in Las Vegas (7 pm E.S.T), the Desert Research Institute (DRI), the DOE's contractor that maintains the 29-station CEMP network, posted the following status update (the first and only one about the Las Vegas station's anomalous readings) on the CEMP website:

Las Vegas
March 22, 2010 The Las Vegas station experienced an eletronic [sic] malfunction over the weekend that created numerous bad readings on the PIC and several other sensors. The problem was traced to a faulty connection on the PIC. The connection was repaired and the PIC replaced to allow additional tests to be done on the PIC.

Note, firstly, that it should appear to both the trained and untrained eye that the faulty connection on the PIC actually began not 'over the weekend' but on or around March 11, or March 12.  Note, secondly, obviously, that it is the 22nd of March that the DRI finally began troubleshooting the problem.  That is a 10-day delay between the problem's onset to DRI's troubleshooting action.  Why didn't the DRI notice that on March 12, 13, 14, ....that 'bad readings' were coming from the CEMP PIC?  Starting on March 12th and for the next six days, maximum gamma values spiked for several hours each day, each time reaching about 6 times background levels.   That is not normal!  (This is clear from any graph of max. gamma readings plotted beginning on March 11.)   

Where was the DRI for those 10 days?   If there was a radioactive plume moving over Las Vegas, how would we had known? 

Although the DRI said they fixed the problem, they're not doing their job at troubleshooting problems in a timely manner.  This is not like a broken jukebox that we can wait until the repairman gets around to it.  This is our first-alert system for radiation events in the entire greater NTS area.  Waiting 10 days for DRI to troubleshoot is unacceptable.  The DRI needs to monitor the MONITORS but they aren't doing that very well.  

Gaffs are not a new thing with DRI.  During the first week of August 2007, several weeks after a week-long gamma spiking episode at a CEMP station in Milford, Utah attracted great controversy in Utah over whether Cold War fallout was to blame or not, the DRI ERASED a section of publicly-accessible radiation data without any explanation.  Then, on August 8, 2007, the data (min/max/average gamma) was restored, again without explanation.   To date, the DRI has also largely failed to explain in any way, shape or form to the public the reason why they manipulate or erase CEMP data at the end of each month, and why they don't provide the public with an online 'hard copy' of the un-manipulated data.  Even during the first week of April  2010, when the DRI erased nearly 4 entire days of minimum and maximum gamma data and one full-day of average gamma data associated with the Las Vegas CEMP station, the public was given no explanation why data was removed.  The CEMP noted on an online message on March 22 that 'The Las Vegas station experienced an eletronic [sic] malfunction over the weekend'  so WHY did the DRI erase nearly everything commencing with (and including) the spike of average gamma at around 10 am on March 18, which fell before the weekend?  Idealist believes that DRI is embarrassed and reluctant to admit that the PIC was malfunctioning on March 12 and it took them 10 days to diagnose the problem.  

 
(We saved to our computer on March 20th the graph from March 18 and pasted it above.  Below it is the DRI graph; the DRI manipulated CEMP data in early April and 'took out' most of the spikes from March 18, which caused the 'scale' of the graph to drop from a range of -30 to 120 microRem to 0 to 20 microRem.  Revisionism?  Censorship?  Immoral?  What do you think?)

The DRI, which provides no 'backup' dataset (to compare the manipulated data to the original data), has an immoral data policy in our opinion.   

The DRI also has never fixed an 'amplitude limiting' error that caused gamma radiation data and graphs associated with the Milford CEMP in July 2007 to level-off at an arbitrary value of 868 microRem/hr.  Although DRI/DOE blamed the Milford gamma spiking originally to radon, then later to cosmogenic radiation, and then finally to a bent SIM-socket, the cause of the graphing problem was never discovered or fixed.⁴  It appears that this graphing problem reappeared during the Las Vegas spiking event.⁵ 

Finally, how can we believe the DRI that there was indeed a faulty connection to the PIC?  The public still has deep distrust of assurances given by the DOE when it comes to radiation and for good reason: read more on our Nevada page (see radiation monitoring section.  If the whole point is to protect populated areas, especially from plutonium resuspension, why doesn't the DOE have high volume samplers around Las Vegas, or real-time alpha spectrometry?  Or days, not weeks, turnaround on alpha/beta lab spectrometry??  The 29-station CEMP network that rings the NTS utilizes low-volume samplers (bi-weekly) that are *not* suitable for measuring airborne plutonium.)

Even though the DRI has a growing credibility as a world class institution, it is a contractor to the DOE as operator of CEMP.  This wasn't always the way it was.  Until 1998, when the DOE decided - without informing the public or asking any other government entity - that it was going to 'streamline' NTS area monitoring, and actually gut it severely, the EPA ran the monitoring programs.  There was more independence under that structure for the simple reason that the EPA does not answer to the DOE - as the DRI must do.  

In order for the public to trust and believe in a community monitoring program there needs to be more independence, again, and more distance from the DOE.  We need to have an authentic third-party running CEMP, again.  This third-party must have greater sovereignty with decision-making abilities unaffected by the DOE.  Only when this happens, will we see the implementation of better radiation monitoring devices and better data integrity policies.  

Since 2007 Idealist has been advocating for improvements in the CEMP network.   Most of our views and suggestions are expressed in our letter regarding the need for improved radiation monitoring and our Milford Flat Fire page.

DRI should upload other radiological data recorded by the Las Vegas CEMP station (i.e. air filter analyses) online (cemp.dri.edu) to make up for the malfunction-affected gamma data. 

Consider some of the possible sources of radioactivity that could have crossed over Las Vegas the week of March 15 to March 22. All of the below events (skip down below to 'RADIOACTIVE SOURCE #1') could have been real occurrences, and they might still be, and how would we had known, or know?   

Compare to revised DRI chart

According to data from the website intellicast.com, on Friday (March 19), winds in the morning at 7am were from the NNW at 17mph and through 6pm winds varied from 10 mph to 17 mph from the NNE to the NNW, mostly N.   On the evening of March 19 at 7pm winds shifted from the SE, by 10pm through 2am from the E or ESE at 6mph to 10mph, from 4am on March 20 to 9am winds were from the SSW at around 6-8 mph; from 10 am on March 20 to 9pm winds shifted greatly from ESE at 10am and 11am, to SE and SSE from 11am to 2pm; no data from 3pm to 6pm; from the E at 3-6 mph between 7pm to 9pm; then WNW, NW and then NNW from 10pm to 1am. On March 21, winds at 4pm were from the West, at 6am from the NW.  Full wind data also from CEMP

RADIOACTIVE SOURCE #1:

The NOAA, during the week of March 12, in its ‘Smoke Text Product,’ tried to make sense of a ‘large area of aerosol of rather thin density but unknown origin and composition’ that was making its way all over the U.S.  The NOAA attributed this layer of haze/aerosol – which they believed to be mostly smoke - to prescribed burns in the south central states. On March 17, a smoke plume the size of California was heading towards the Gulf of Mexico from seasonal burnings in the south-central states.  In northern Idaho, at least three large fires intensified on March 20, sending smoke to the east.  Entrained in this smoke could have been sizeable amounts of cesium-137 from weapons testing fallout.

Cesium-137-laced smoke was the culprit behind the gamma radiation spiking in south-central Utah in 2007 that we attributed to the Milford Flat Fire.  The same could be happening in Las Vegas from out-of-state, or in-state, seasonal burnings on farms and peoples’ backyards.  (Fires around the Black Rock Gulch area of southern Utah and near Milford, UT, were visible from satellite late in the week).

Long-lived cesium-137 is plentiful in U.S. soils from nuclear weapons testing and nuclear power reactor fallout from 1945 to the present.  It lingers in the top few inches of soil and is incorporated into plant material.  Cesium-137 in the soil and organic matter is then easily resuspended during wildfires and prescribed burns.  

RADIOACTIVE SOURCE #2: 

Another possible culprit: radioactive dust.  On March 17, the NOAA noted ‘An area of haze of unknown composition and origin has entered the US along the central California coast and stretched northeastward across southeast Oregon and into southwest Montana.’  

What was this ‘area of haze’ and where did it come from?   North Korea?  Japan?  Hawaii?  Chile's earthquake?  The Kwajalein Test Range in the Marshall Islands?

How about China?   China, Taiwan, both Koreas, Mongolia, and other nations in East Asia on the weekend of March 20-21 experienced the effects of what some were calling the 'worst-ever dust storm.'  Each year beginning in March, yellow dust coats northern Chinese cities from sand storms that arise from interior Asian deserts.  The March storm, however, was especially bad - it blocked out the sun in some areas, forcing drivers to use their headlights in daytime; it sent hordes of people into hospitals; and it was unusually large in size, triggering hazard warnings in many Asian cities and even South Korea's first nationwide dust warning.  The AFP noted 'Sandstorms frequently hit the arid north of China in the spring, when temperatures start to rise, stirring up clouds of dust that can travel across China, to South Korea and Japan and even as far as the United States. Scientists blame a combination of deforestation and prolonged drought in northern China for the phenomenon.' (Sandstorms blanket Beijing in yellow dust, AFP)  

It is believed that the dust storm originated in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia and northwest China and as it moved across China it picked up dust from other arid areas of China including the fallout hotspots from nuclear testing at Lop Nor.  Since increasing desertification is making it easier for fallout-contaminated soils to be lofted, then it would make sense that dust storms from Asia are becoming MORE radioactive, even to air quality in the United States.  

Although that dust storm, which began on Friday, March 19, in China, or Thursday, March 18, in the United States, wouldn't reach the U.S. until March 23-28, Nevada's radiation monitors could have been detecting sandstorm particles from early 'season storms.'  There are about 25 such sand storms in China each year.  In April 1998, a Chinese dust storm took six days to reach the coast of California and British Columbia.  

On Thursday, March 18, 2010, the day Las Vegas' radiation monitors began going berserk, NOAA issued the following message:

“Eastern California/Western Nevada:

Areas of blowing dust are spreading S[outh] across parts of the western US.

In California dust has spread S[outh] across Madera, Mariposa, Tulare, Fresno

and Kern counties.  In Nevada blowing dust can be seen moving S[outh]

across the counties of Mineral, Lyon and Churchill.”

[counties in Southern Nevada]

Accuweather noted on March 20 that 'Asian dust has been known to traverse the entire Pacific Ocean and reduce visibility in the Western U.S. This only happens during the most extreme events.'

The blog Virginia Against Uranium Mining uploaded along with our diary-oped titled 'Las Vegas Radiation Monitors Going Haywire' a satellite photo of the actual dust plume over southwest Nevada on March 18.  The photo is from the NOAA service 'GOES West - West Central Imagery.'  

[In 2009, a dust storm that swept through Maralinga and Emu Field, nuclear test areas in south-central Australia, coated that country's east coast with radioactive dust.  More on that. ]

NOAA Updates: On 3/23 NOAA noted  'California:  A large area of unknown aerosols was seen dropping slowly southward through central California this evening ahead of high clouds. Best guess as to the origin and composition of this aerosol is that it may be dust blown from across the Pacific.'  NOAA noted on 3/24, "Large area of unknown aerosols over central California ahead of a cold front moving into the region. Best guess being this is blowing dust from Asia carried across the Pacific."  On 3/26: 

"Southwest U.S. 

Significant area of blowing dust/aerosols was seen spreading eastward across portions of extreme southeast Arizona, southern New Mexico and into west Texas in GOES-EAST imagery. The dust was even dense enough to be picked up in the infrared channel of GOES. In the last few images of GOES-EAST visible plume of aerosols appeared to stretch as back west across northern Mexico, southern Arizona and over much of southern/central California. Plume of aerosols may have originated from east Asia and carried across the Pacific."

 Footnotes:

¹ From March 18-22, gamma maximum spikes increased initially at a range of 15 microRem/hr to 100 microRem/hr, and later to near (and apparently over) 140 microRem/hr on March 20, and near 170 microRem/hr on March 21.  

² Such variables included, but were not limited to, gamma values (average and minimum), soil temperature, air temperature, data logger temperature, battery voltage, and air flow.

³ Battery voltage nearly doubled and max. air flow nearly quadrupled from March 20-22.  Some data variables such as all wind 'products,' solar radiation and relative humidity (and until March 22 barometric pressure)  remained unaffected through the 22nd.

⁴ Idealist believes it was because the DOE/DRI is/was using older PICs in some of their CEMP stations that can read only up to 1,000 microRem/hr in two modes - up to 800 uRem/hr and 800-1000 uRem/hr.  Idealist believes that the DRI set the Milford station PIC to the lower setting that resulted in a maximum, or cap, for gamma readings.  If so, then a part or whole CEMP monitoring station would be, or would have been, ill-equipped to determine the level of radioactivity of anything more than a mildly radioactive plume of gamma-emitting radionuclides.

⁵ There was a re-occurrence of the 'amplitude limiting' problem like we saw with the gamma graphs during the Milford Flat Fire. On March 20, from 10:30 to 11 A.M. there was a gamma spike that was broken; the top was chopped off. That spike looks like it was heading to near 200 microRem/hr but stopped short of 140 microRem/hr. It was literally 'off the charts.'  

[click graphs to expand]
March 20