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EPA’s Response to Fukushima Japan Nuclear Emergency

EPA’s Response to Fukushima Japan Nuclear Emergency. Mike Boyd, Senior Health Physicist EPA/Office of Radiation & Indoor Air Presented at 2011 OAS Annual Meeting Richmond, VA August 24, 2011. Impact of Earthquake and Tsunami. Damage to the Reactors

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EPA’s Response to Fukushima Japan Nuclear Emergency

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  1. EPA’s Response to Fukushima Japan Nuclear Emergency Mike Boyd, Senior Health Physicist EPA/Office of Radiation & Indoor Air Presented at 2011 OAS Annual Meeting Richmond, VA August 24, 2011

  2. Impact of Earthquake and Tsunami Damage to the Reactors • Level 7 - "Major Accident" on International Nuclear Event Scale • "A major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures" • Loss of Cooling • Damage to Secondary Containment Vessels • Fuel Meltdown Releases of Radiation to the Environment • “More than several tens of thousands of terabequerels of I-131” • Air releases – Intentional Venting & Hydrogen Explosions • Ocean Releases – Intentional release of Cooling water & Leakage http://www.dae.gov.in/daiichi/japan130411.pdf

  3. EPA Response • Emergency Operations Center • Radiological Emergency Response Team • Regional Response • RadNet • Fixed Network • Deployable Monitors • Precipitation Sampling • Milk Sampling • Drinking Water Sampling • Laboratory Analysis • EPA Japan Incident Website: http://www.epa.gov/japan2011/

  4. National Radiation Monitoring System • EPA's RadNet monitors across the US showed typical fluctuations in background radiation levels. • Additional Deployable Monitors were sent to the Aleutian islands, Hawaii, Guam and Saipan to improve monitoring coverage for this event. • The levels detected to date are far below levels of concern

  5. Air Monitoring Stations

  6. RadNet Deployable Monitors:Fukushima Response Nome Juneau Nome Saipan Guam

  7. Deployable Monitors

  8. Monitoring Results • Why focus on Iodine-131? • Primary Component of Fukushima release • Gaseous Phase • Transported Great Distance in Atmosphere • Sensitivity • Easily detected and measured • Clearly Illustrates impacts and trends • Primary Source of Potential Exposure • Concern for uptake in child thyroid

  9. Comparing Chernobyl Data to Current Event Data

  10. What is Additional Risk from Fukushima? • Trace levels of radioactive isotopes measured are consistent with the Japanese nuclear incident and far below levels of public health concern. • Additional exposure from well below 1 mrem for individuals in US and Territories • Measured levels hundreds to thousands of times lower than FDA Derived Intervention Levels (DILS) http://www.epa.gov/radiation/understand/perspective.html

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