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20 Radioactive Dangers We All Face |
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Notice: If you or someone you know was traveling on Interstate-15 in central Utah between Scipio and Beaver, or on I-70 from Cove Fort (I-15 junction) to Richfield, Utah, on Saturday, July 7, 2007, and meet these conditions - (1) experienced exposure to heavy smoke from the Milford Flat fire and (2) have persisting health problems since that exposure - please contact us. We can put you in contact with others who have experienced property damage or bodily harm from the fire/smoke exposure and are seeking remedy.
The Milford flat fire jumped I-15 near Cove Fort, Utah, on Saturday, July 7, prompting closure of a part of the interstate system by Saturday afternoon; the resulting traffic snarl and poor visibility due to smoke density was blamed for a fatal accident that killed two motorists. The smoke from the Milford Flat fire contained hundreds of toxic compounds that are normally found in wood smoke; those substances typically don't affect health in the long term. Any long-term effects from smoke exposure may be attributed to radiological substances - i.e., nuclear fallout resuspended by the fire. Read more below.
MILFORD FLAT FIRE (2007)|
Articles: July
13, 2007:
NATION’S
LARGEST FIRE SPREADS COLD WAR FALLOUT July 4, 2008: Navigating the rocky shallows of radiation monitoring...don't rely on this lighthouse |
On July 5, 2007, what would become the biggest fire in Utah's history hadn't yet started. It would start the next day, on July 6 at 3:45 p.m. Yet, on July 5, an atmospheric and radiation monitoring station in the town of Milford, Utah, picked up abnormally high levels of gamma radiation - the radiation was off the charts and continued that way for over a week.
Officials from the Department of Energy, which operates the monitoring station in Milford, first believed that the radiation spikes were caused by radon gas being released by the Milford Flat Fire, the wildfire that didn't start until the next day! The DOE later couldn't prove their theory about radon gas and in October 2007 reached another conclusion: that the radiation spikes were caused by a warped electronic component within the monitoring equipment; the cause of warping was unknown.
The interesting aspect about the Milford Flat fire event is that no theory put forward has been nor can be proven or disproven. This is largely the result of the inferior quality of the monitoring network managed by the DOE. (Read Our letter to the Utah Radiation Control Board regarding the need for improved radiation monitoring) Since the story about Milford radiation made the news in July, the DOE has insisted that the gamma radiation spikes were not caused by Cold War fallout being resuspended by regional wildfires. However, the DOE can't prove this anymore than they can prove that the radiation spikes resulted from a malfunctioning electronic socket. Consider the possibility that the Milford monitoring station detected actual radiation while simultaneously experiencing disturbances from the malfunctioning electronic component. The two are not mutually exclusive events.
In our Youtube video, we explain where this resuspended Cold War fallout could have originated:
View animated visual satellite imagery of the Southwest on July 5, 2007, from 1700 to 2000 MST here
There are two sets of data that depicted gamma radiation levels at the Milford, Utah, monitoring station. Why did the NNSA use the dataset that downplayed the radiation threat?
Maximum gamma radiation readings
in downtown Milford, Utah, beginning on July 5, 2007, were not 140 microRem per
hour (equivalent to seven times
background radiation levels) as reported by the National Nuclear Security Administration.
That maximum figure provided by the
NNSA is based on data that is averaged and therefore is
misleading. The CEMP
monitoring station in Milford summarizes data for each 10 minute* period
by averaging all values during that interval. The maximum gamma data
points - the 'spikes' - are not 7 times background radiation, but in
actuality over 40 times background levels. 
Also, as you can see from the graph to the right, the spikes hit a 'ceiling' of about 868 microRem per hour. Look closer at the graph on the right of true maximum gamma readings on July 5th and this graph for July 6th. (graph for July 5 -July 12) The spikes bump up against an artificial ceiling in the high 860s microRem/hr. From 7:30-9:40pm on July 5, the maximum gamma value reached during nine separate 10-minute periods was 867 microRem/hr. How can this be explained? Gamma particles don't have personalities. They can't decide - en masse - to decide to emit a specified, non-random energy level. The gamma particles didn't just get together and say 'Hey guys. Let's really fool the humans and jump up to 867 microRem/hr during the next two hours but don't go above that value.' That would be like if - in the real world - all nine of the hottest days in one summer all registered 103.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Wouldn't that just be a little too weird? Wouldn't you begin to wonder if the weatherman's thermometer was broken and perhaps cannot read above 103.2 degrees? What if you were a nurse and the thermometer you used to care for your patients was faulty in the same way? Likewise, what if people in Utah were being exposed to radiation in amounts far greater than the faulty gamma monitor could detect?
In the first week of August, a section of the data - including all gamma values after about 6pm on July 5 through all of July 6 - was erased without an explanation provided by the Desert Research Institute.
On August 8, 2007, the gamma data (min/max/average) was restored, again without explanation.
* "Currently, data is being averaged at 10-minute intervals and web page data is updated every hour for the majority of sites. If needed, stations can be remotely programmed to collect data at even more frequent intervals in the event of an emergency." Source www.dhs.dri.edu [our opinion: The NNSA's press release (7.12.07) failed to alert the public that the maximum gamma reading - 'almost 140 microRem per hour' - that they were reporting was the average over a 10 minute-interval. The NNSA and DRI should have conveyed this important detail in press releases and also via the CEMP website. Also, with gamma levels literally going off the charts, why wasn't the fire considered an emergency? Why weren't the intervals shortened?]
More about a General Electric (GE)-Reuter Stokes Model #RSS-131 Environmental Radiation Monitor
View sample code for programming a Campbell Scientific CR model datalogger for conditional averages
For an interesting history lesson on how the CEMP monitoring network has DEVOLVED since it was implemented in 1981, read the following:
Fall 1998: Department
of Energy (DOE) Guts Environmental Radiation Monitoring Around the
Nevada Test Site
Quote: 'A new, significantly smaller monitoring program will be run by a DOE contractor. The contractor is bound to obtain results approved by DOE to maintain their contract. It must always answer to DOE...There will be no independent verification of the data.'
1998: EPA and NV Agency for Nuclear Projects letters regarding changes to monitoring program
Are Utahns in Danger? Could the radioactivity indeed be Nevada atomic testing fallout ?
In 2006, an international team of scientists made an interesting discovery: forest fires are capable of re-distributing radionuclides over great distances. Science News, a weekly newsmagazine, reported on the discovery in their July 2006 article Radiation Redux: Forest Fires remobilize fallout from bomb tests: "A sensitive instrument installed in the Canadian Arctic to monitor fallout from modern nuclear tests has detected small amounts of radioactive cesium produced by bomb tests decades ago. The material, which during the Cold War was spread across northern latitudes by high-altitude winds, is still being redistributed far and wide by forest fires, researchers say."
The group of international scientists published their paper, titled Inter- and intra-continental transport of radioactive cesium released by boreal forest fires, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in 2006 and cited a number of previous studies. The researchers concluded in their paper that their finding "demonstrates that 137Cs deposited world-wide from past nuclear testing is re-injected into the atmosphere by combustion to a significant extent and on a large scale, and is subsequently transported across great distances." Powerpoint slide
How much Cesium could have been resuspended from the Milford Flat fire? (Perhaps the better question, raised in the Salt Lake City Weekly's article, is the reverse: how much Cesium was left behind (in the soil) manifested in the more fragile form of ash?) A 1996 study, 'Burning radionuclide question: What happens to iodine, cesium and chlorine in biomass fires?,' published in the journal The Science of the Total Environment found that 40-70% of Cesium is lost to the atmosphere during a typical fire.
Abstract: Fires can mobilize radionuclides from contaminated biomass through suspension of gases and particles in the atmosphere or solubilization and enrichment of the ash. Field and laboratory burns were conducted to determine the fate of I, Cs and Cl in biomass fires. Straw, wood, peat, dulse (seaweed) and radish plants were combusted with temperatures varying from 160 to 1000 degrees C, representing the normal range of field fire temperatures. Loss to the atmosphere increased with fire temperature and during a typical field fire, 80-90% of the I and Cl, and 40-70% of the Cs was lost to the atmosphere. The remainder was left behind in the ash and was soluble. Typically, the ash was enriched in I by a factor of two to three, with higher enrichments of Cs and lower enrichments of Cl, when compared to the initial fuel concentration during field burns. Most of the I was lost to the atmosphere as a gas. If the elements were radioactive isotopes, such as I-129, Cs-137 and Cl-36, fires could cause an increased radiological dose to people through inhalation, exposure to ash, or ingestion of plants because of increased uptake of ash leachate. [the emphasis is ours]
From page 10 of the study:
'These enrichment factors show that the ash usually becomes more contaminated than the original fuel and has the potential to cause a greater radiological dose to humans. Further, the solubility of the elements is increased in the ash compared to the original fuel, especially when burned a low temperatures. This means that the element can be more readily distributed in the landscape in water runoff...Potassium is a chemical analog of Cs [Cesium] and...Ohno (1992) and Soto and Diaz-Fierros (1993) found it highly soluble in wood and plant ash. The issue of solubility is important: plant growth is often enhanced after a landscape fire, indicating response to solubilized nutrients such as K, as well as other changes in the soil.'
Map: Cesium 137 deposition density due to all NTS tests ; also here
Other wildfires in the States
When the BLM proposed a fire management plan in 2001 targeted at forests north of NTS, the Western Shoshone were up in arms, saying the burns would stir up radioactive debris lying dormant in dead trees and affect downwind communities.
'Western Shoshones say the Bureau of Land Management needs to revamp a wildfire plan for its Ely District because it doesn't address the effects of burning areas where poisonous herbicides have been sprayed and radioactive fallout lingers..."No one knows the amount of extent of nuclear contamination in the area surrounding the (Nevada Test Site) and Nellis Air Force Base, which tests depleted uranium bombs," according to the Bobbs' letter.' More at WILDFIRES: Shoshones: BLM must revamp plan
In 2000, huge wildfires [broken link] raged across several Department of Energy sites in the West. The incidents created a health panic over radioactive particles being dispersed by smoke. Read more in Hanford fire put plutonium into the air.
Maps and Photos
1 - Caption: July 7: Smoke rises from the Milford Flat fire, east of Milford, Utah. The 160,000-acre wildfire jumped a freeway Saturday, forcing the closure of Interstate 15 for a 100-mile stretch through central Utah.
2 - Caption: July 7: The Milford Flat Fire burns east of Milford, Utah http://www.foxnews.com/photoessay/photoessay_2014_images/0708071143_M_070807_fires1.jpg
3 - ABC4.com 's weekend anchor Terry Wood in action
4 - NASA's Terra satellite photos of burned areas on July 17 - low res high res [broken links to be fixed]
5 - Audio slideshow
Location of Milford station on Google Maps Topo map
Black Rock Gulch fire in Google Maps
Black Rock Gulch fire on TerraServer (topo)
When did the Milford Flat fire really start? No one knows. Officials say the fire was first reported at about 3:45 p.m. Friday (July 6). By Saturday morning (July 7) officials estimated the burn area at 2,000 acres. Winds of more than 40 mph and daytime heat fueled the fire, which exploded to more than 160,000 acres by Saturday evening. By Sunday morning (July 8) it had grown to nearly 300,000 acres. Then it slowed down because the winds which were driving it abated. A week later, the fire was 100% contained and burned just over 363,000 acres.
Please
help support our research into the Milford Flat fire.
We're presently compiling scientific data and news information to
improve our theory - and eventually disseminate our findings to
media outlets - that the radiation detected in Milford was
indeed manmade. Our costs comprise a-la-carte and subscription
fees for atmospheric (weather and radiation) data from various
sources, photocopying (scientific articles), and news
databases. Sorry, donations aren't tax-deductible - we're
not yet a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization.
If you would like to help support our research, please visit our Donate
page.
ACTION STEPS
Write, email or call the board members of the Utah Radiation Control Board and urge them to act on the letter that we presented to them on October 5 requesting that they launch a formal review of the Community Environmental Monitoring Program. Also, call Dane Finerfrock, Executive Secretary of the Board and Director of the Utah Division of Radiation Control, at 801-536-4257 or email him at dfinerfrock@utah.gov and ask him when the Board will meet to address the issue of the radiation monitoring network as addressed in the letter.
Send (just click the word 'send') the above Youtube video to your friends and tell them about this website (www.idealist.ws)
Idealist's public document archives: 1. 
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'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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