DAMN RIGHT: Gaining exposure
by SCOTT SAXON
March 31, 2011
As radiation drifts westward from the recently battered Land of the Rising Plume, the U.S. is taking all necessary precautions to prevent a nuclear disaster on their own soil. Quickest to do their part appears to be the Environmental Protection Agency, which intends to counter harmful radiation exposure by proclaiming radioactive contamination now safer than ever!
Less than a decade after introducing the 1992 Protective Action Guides, which are used in the enforcement of various environmental laws, the EPA has decided to amend their original figures for acceptable levels of radiation exposure through food, water and the air. According to internal EPA correspondence obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, some levels are being raised up to 100,000 times. To complement this unsettling decision, the standards for cleaning up a radioactive mess will be reduced. By the EPA’s own figures, 25 per cent of those exposed to radiation under their new safety levels would develop cancer.
As important as such decisions might seem, the EPA only offers an ex post facto period of traditionally ignored public comment.
—SCOTT SAXON
Short URL: http://www.montrealmirror.com/wp/?p=20266
