Another True Fact

(C) 2010 Stan Spire


When I wrote my "Aren't Facts True?" post about the Vermont Yankee nuke power plant, I inferred the corporation that owns the facility, Entergy, was a bunch of liars.

At that time -- and I haven't seen it on lately -- Entergy was a running TeeVee ad with a PR bimbo going on how she wanted people to know about the "true facts" about Vermont Yankee. I'm always suspicious when someone has use "true" as an adjective for "fact."

The other day VY revealed that it made a "misstatement" regarding the existence of underground pipes circulating radioactive liquid. Originally it denied such pipes existed. But -- oops -- now they admit such pipes do exist.

In the past traces of tritium have shown up in water samples taken from groundwater outside the plant but Entergy said no underground pipes were causing the problem because such pipes didn't exist.

But Entergy wasn't lying -- it was only "misstating."

Vermont Guv Jim Doug-ass -- a Republican corporate shill -- looked upset and stunned on the TeeVee evening news regarding the underground pipe revelation. But despite the "misstatement," he still supports renewing the operating license of the aging nuke deathtrap.

Anyway, here's a fact for you, a true one.

At the EPA website it is stated:

"As with all ionizing radiation, exposure to tritium increases the risk of developing cancer. However, because it emits very low energy radiation and leaves the body relatively quickly, for a given amount of activity ingested, tritium is one of the least dangerous radionuclides. Since tritium is almost always found as water, it goes directly into soft tissues and organs. The associated dose to these tissues are generally uniform and dependent on the tissues' water content."

OK, tritium is less dangerous among cancer-causing agents, but is it still good for babies and other growing things?


Source: http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/tritium.html#peopleshealth