Milk in Washington State and California were detected by the EPA and state Departments of Health to have levels of iodine-131. According to the EPA, the amounts discovered in the milk were at a level approximately 5,000 times lower than the regulated limit, but nonetheless were higher than otherwise "normal" conditions. Federal officials say "not to worry." As it turns out, milk is one of the easiest foods to gauge and test for radiation, according to Al Lundeen the spokesperson for the California Department of Health. For those of you who are not intimately familiar with iodine-131, it is a gas (along with iodine-129) formed within fuel rods as they fission.
According to the article in the Associated Press:
The modeling the EPA and FDA have done show that even if a catastrophic
failure occurred in the reactor vessel at the Fukushima plant, we have a 6,000
mile difference between Japan and the West Coast. That's more than adequate
to dilute the radiation.
These trace amounts of radiation are a clear result of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Radiation can make the 6,000 mile trek, and I am not convinced there is enough historical data on the subject to conclusively determine what is an "adequate" distance to dilute radiation.
For more information about Iodine-131, click HERE
For more information about contaminated milk samples, click HERE
The news from Japan gets worse and worse: the main reactor failure is now being compared to Chernobyl. Frankly, I think it's probably an extreme of solipsism to worry about mildly elevated levels of radiation in our milk, compared to what the people of Japan are facing.
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