Strontium-90: it’s what’s for dinner

Per today’s Rutland Herald:

A Connecticut River fish caught four miles upstream from the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor this winter tested positive for low levels of strontium-90, a highly dangerous radioactive isotope recently confirmed in soil outside the plant.

But the Department of Health said Monday that the fish’s strontium-90 was not related to this winter’s radioactive leak at Vermont Yankee, and state officials attributed the strontium to atmospheric testing in the 1960s and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 20 years ago, which spread radioactive fallout even as far away as Vermont.

But not to worry:

“Even if in edible portions, there is no expected, measurable health risk from the consumption of fish contaminated from these extremely low, fallout-derived quantities of strontium-90,”

See?  Everything’s just fine.

Wonder how they know where the SR-90 is coming from?

3 thoughts on “Strontium-90: it’s what’s for dinner

  1. did you notice how all your lights went brown while Louisiana Entergy Yankee was taken %100 offline for maintenance and refueling?

  2. who is doing this testing anyway? Does VY contract out this type of test? Our man Irwin at the State Health Dept. doesn’t sound concerned or very well acquainted with the information.

    Irwin said he didn’t know what kind of fish it was, nor how big or old it was. He said that the environmental samplers are supposed to catch yellow and white perch, largemouth, smallmouth and rock bass, northern pike or chain pickerel.

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