Head Researcher: Boulder, Colorado a “hot spot” for Fukushima fallout — None of their other US or Canadian samples came close to Boulder’s contamination, except Portland which was even higher
By ENENews
April 6th, 2012
Title: Kaltofen’s soil measurement 100X UCB’s? – 296 becquerel/kg?
Source: UC Berkeley Department of Nuclear Engineering Forum
Date: April 5, 2012
Submitted 2012-04-05 19:51 PT
My group measured soil, air filter and dust samples from Washington, Oregon, California, and British Columbia. This particular soil sample, with 8 pCi/g of radiocesium, was our highest North American result. It came from a site on the outskirts of Portland, OR. The next highest result came from a site near Boulder, CO. Except for followup samples near these two sites, no other US or Canadian samples came close to the levels of radiocesium in these “hot spots.” Given the nature of radioactive fallout, this is an expected result. Both hot spots are likely due to rainouts that took place during March or April 2011. A recent study by the USGS, “Fission Products in National Atmospheric Deposition Program—Wet Deposition Samples Prior to and Following the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant Incident, March 8–April 5, 2011″, found remarkably similar results. The USGS study was more detailed, (and more with a much bigger budget), and found evidence of rainouts at Portland and Boulder. When you collect a lot of samples, some are bound to be much higher than the average.
Marco Kaltofen
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