Response to WashPost ltr

["Ted Rockwell" <tedrock@starpower.net>]

Friends:



I just sent the following words to the Letters Ed, WashPost.  It's awfully

brief, but I think that gives it the maximum chance (still small) of getting

published. Of course, a letter from a third party, such as a State Nuclear

Engineer or other august official, would probably carry more weight.  :-)



Ted Rockwell

____________________________________________



Michael Levi agrees (Letters, Sept.20) with the main point of my column

("Radiation Chicken Little," Sept 16).  He says, "Radiation is not as

dangerous as most people imagine."  But he makes two serious factual errors.



He says residual contamination "would introduce major safety, logistics and

cost challenges" and "one in 10 residents...would die of cancer as a

result."  This is simply untrue.  He gets this number by multiplying a very

small individual risk by a very large number of people presumed to be

exposed.  This process of "predicting" deaths has been judged scientifically

invalid by every responsible radiation authority.  If no individual receives

a harmful dose, then no one is harmed.



Levi says radioactivity "chemically attaches to glass, concrete and asphalt"

and would not be removed by high-pressure water hoses.  But then it would

not be a health hazard--unless one eats the concrete!



Levi talks about radiation levels "ten times the natural radiation

background."  But there are many places in the world where people live

healthily in even higher radiation background--up to 100 times average.



Radioactivity is like any other contaminant--it is not mysterious, unknown

or unnatural.  We should clean it up to whatever level warrants the cost.

But our judgment should be based on well-established health risk data, not

on idoelogically based "zero-tolerance" regulations.