[ RadSafe ] RE: Mangano: US Beta Levels Up 40% Since 1980

Tue Dec 27 10:27:54 CST 2005

Peter,
I think your idea is good, but most people on this
list would rather talk the subject to death within the
list.  

--- "Sandgren, Peter" <Peter.Sandgren at po.state.ct.us>
wrote:

> I hope some of you learned folks have also sent your
> highly informative
> letters to the publications that have seen fit to
> print Mangano's
> unscientific claims.  For my 2 cents, I believe that
> anybody who
> announces he/she has scientific and controversial
> "information" to share
> will always find a reporter or newspaper to put
> their claims in print.  
> 
> The best defense and the strongest safeguard we have
> is the knowledge
> and experience of you folks on radsafe.  For every
> distorted claim that
> makes it into print, if two or three letters (with
> supporting scientific
> references) come to contradict those claims, at
> least one of those
> letters will be printed, and rad-fearful minds will
> be calmed.  These
> email rebuttals that come into radsafe could, with a
> little polishing,
> go far to hold back the tide of fear that threatens
> to close nuclear
> plants around the country.  So, thanks to all of you
> who take the time
> to write!  Please keep it up, and send them on to
> the newspapers.  Most
> papers will accept email letters as long as the name
> and address (and
> credentials!) of the writer are included. 
> 
> Happy New Year to all,
> Peter Sandgren
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl
> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
> Behalf Of farbersa at optonline.net
> Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 4:26 PM
> To: goldinem at songs.sce.com
> Cc: radsafe at radlab.nl
> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] RE: Mangano: US Beta Levels
> Up 40% Since 1980
> 
> Happy Holidays to all:
> 
> If it were not for the fact that Mangano is so
> effective in fooling
> gullible members of the media and the public with
> his unscientific
> claims related to his being a 2nd generation
> Sternglass wannabe,  his
> "claims" would be laughable. 
> 
> However,  in relation to his claims, the EPA has not
> even had a
> consistent network of rainwater monitoring over the
> past 20 years
> because there has been nothing worth monitoring
> outside of a brief
> period in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident.
> 
> As an example of the absurdity of Mangano's
> environmental radioactivity
> claims in relation to Vermont Yankee, back in
> 1989-90,  I carried out a
> small study of Cs-137 in woodash derived from home
> fireplace burning of
> mature hardwoods all over the US. Several samples
> were collected from
> Vermont. One came from my own fireplace at a
> vacation home I had in
> Warren, VT over 100 miles from Vermont Yankee. The
> Cs-137 measured was
> approx. 15,000 picoCuries per kg of ash after
> hardwoods grown from the
> area around Warren, VT were burned and analyzed by
> quantitative gamma
> spec analysis.
> 
> Another sample of wood ash collected from the
> burning of mature
> hardwoods growing around Vermont Yankee, was found
> to have only 1,500
> picoCuries of Cs-137 per kg of woodash --or 1/10 the
> concentration of
> Cs-137 100 miles to the north, no where near a
> nuclear plant. Hmmmm.
> 
> All the Cs-137 being measured in woodash in my study
> was derived from
> the deposition of fallout from open air testing of
> nuclear weapons which
> ended [except for a few small open air tests by the
> Chinese] and the
> Chernobyl fallout in 1986 [which added about 1% to
> the pre-existing
> Cs-137 deposition in New England based on my
> extensive review of
> environmental rad data gathered around all the
> nuclear plants in New
> England].  Actual areal deposition of Cs-137 around
> New England is
> fairly constant and cannot account for the 10 fold
> variability of Cs-137
> measured in woodash from samples only 100 miles
> apart. The factors that
> appear to make a difference in the Cs-137 level in
> biomass are the
> potassium levels in soil [low K, high Cs-137 uptake]
> and the stable Cs
> variability  [high stable Cs in soil, high uptake of
> Cs-137 from soil to
> plant -too complex to explain this counterintuitive
> behavior here] in
> soil from one location to another.
> 
> Any Sr-90 deposition in the environment would be in
> proportion to the
> Cs-137 given the relatively constant ratio of
> Sr-90/Cs-137 in fresh
> fallout. So given the 10 fold lower concentration of
> Cs-137 in biomass
> near Vermont Yankee measured in woodash, are we to
> conclude that being
> in the proximity to a nuclear plant operating almost
> 20 years since 1972
> to 1990, reduced Cs-137 [and perhaps Sr-90]  in the
> environment?? :-)
> Perhaps the intake of air into the Vermont Yankee
> plant, and its
> filtration before discharge up the stack cleans up
> the local
> environment?  Offered for your amusement only. But
> we could make an
> argument of this sort that has absolutely no
> significance if we wanted
> to have some fun and mislead gullible readers.
> 
> If we wanted to play the games Mangano enjoys
> playing, we could argue
> based on real environmental data that running a
> nuclear plant  for 20 or
> so years reduces Cs-137 in the nearby environment
> dramatically vs. a
> background area 100 miles away.  Is this true. Of
> course not. It is just
> an indication of how variable environmental
> radioactivity including
> Cs-137 and Sr-90 in biomass and other biota can be
> from one location to
> another. If you pick your data points selectively,
> or look at narrow
> windows of time for one set of measurements vs.
> another, you can make
> "conclusions" that appear credible on a first
> glance,  but which are
> only supported by that one set of data.
> 
> Going back to 1972, the National Academy of Science
> harshly criticicized
> Dr. Ernest Sternglass and his inflammatory claims
> because his claims
> were based on choosing only data which supported his
> hypothesis and
> ignoring data which did not. Mangano has learned a
> lot from his mentor
> Dr. Sternglass and is doing the same intellectually
> dishonest, and
> unscientific manipulations that led to Dr.
> Sternglass being chastised in
> an Appendix to the National Academy of Sciences 1972
> Biological Effects
> of Ionizing Radiation [BEIR] report.
> 
> 
> Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
> Consulting Scientist
> radproject at optonline.net
> [203] 367-0791
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: goldinem at songs.sce.com
> Date: Friday, December 23, 2005 1:09 pm
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] RE: Mangano:  US Beta Levels Up
> 40% Since 1980
> 
> > 
> > Regarding the Mangano claim that Vermont rainwater
> gross beta 
> > levels have
> > increased over the years (due presumably to the
> operation of Vermont
> > Yankee), Health Physics just published a paper on
> the analysis of 
> > 22 years
> > of air samples in New York State (Health Phys. 90
> (1): 31-37; 
> 
=== message truncated ===

+++++++++++++++++++
"Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction."
"John F. Kennedy, U.S. President and former Naval Officer 

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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