Contrast this confident statement from an Environmental Protection Agency webpage with the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) headline and subheadline that follow:
EPA operates more than 130 radiation air monitors across the United States as part of its RadNet nationwide monitoring system. RadNet runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and transmits near real-time measurements of beta and gamma radiation to EPA’s National Analytical Radiation Environmental Laboratory (NAREL). The near real-time air monitoring data is continually reviewed by computer, and if the results show a significant increase in radiation levels, EPA laboratory staff is immediately alerted to investigate.
From the 20 October WSJ: “Radiation sensors in major U.S. cities turned off because they don’t work: Most stations run by EPA can’t monitor for beta particles in real time, prompting criticism; agency says monitoring for gamma rays is enough.”
The WSJ news report opens by invoking the 9/11 attacks of 2001 and framing the RadNet system as a terrorism countermeasure. The EPA’s historical timeline for the system and its forerunners goes back 70 years, to the era of the first nuclear weapons tests. When the timeline gets to 2001, it notes that after the attacks, the system “was re-evaluated and updated to increase geographical coverage and better support national decision makers during emergencies.”
The WSJ article goes on to report that EPA “officials confirmed 99 of 135 beta-radiation sensors in its RadNet system—which monitors in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico—aren’t working and have been turned off.” It adds, “Officials blame electromagnetic interference from sources such as cellphone towers and said efforts to resolve the problem have been unsuccessful.”
The article emphasizes controversy:
The agency can compensate for the lack of real-time beta data, officials said, by relying on each RadNet station’s gamma-radiation monitor, which hasn’t been affected by the interference. Almost all radionuclides that emit beta particles also emit gamma radiation, they said. Both types of radiation can cause cancer.
Some nuclear experts said that in an emergency, knowing as much as possible about whether beta or gamma emitters are present, and in which amounts, can be crucial for making decisions such as how large an area might need protective measures. In instances where only a beta emitter is present, the lack of a working monitor could leave officials unaware of potentially dangerous levels of contamination, they added.
The beta-monitoring issue could fuel critics who contend the EPA has been pulling back on its radiation-protection mission—an assertion the agency strongly disputes.
The WSJ grounds its article in EPA documents and publicly known actions. The news report particularly focuses on strontium-90:
EPA officials acknowledged that one major radionuclide—strontium-90, which can get into people’s bones—emits only beta particles. However, they said, an event releasing a large amount of strontium-90 would also release large amounts of gamma-emitting radionuclides that could be picked up. Even with beta monitors, laboratory filter analyses would be needed to confirm the strontium, they added.
But some experts, inside and outside of government, argue that being able to separately and quickly detect the presence of a beta emitter such as strontium-90 could influence evacuation or other emergency plans.
The article quotes Jonathan Edwards, director of the EPA’s radiation protection division: “We can confidently say that this system is fully capable now and fully operational now with the current monitors it has to detect fairly minute levels of radiation.” It also quotes NAREL director John Griggs, who says that beta detectors are much less important than the gamma monitors: “Not having the beta monitor is absolutely not a concern of ours.”
A Google News search shows that the EPA’s struggles with RadNet have been covered elsewhere in the past. In February 2013 the San Francisco Chronicle reported that RadNet “was in disarray when radiation began spewing from Fukushima” and that “fully 20 percent of RadNet monitors across the United States were inoperative, and had been for an average of 130 days.”
