From the Nuclear Information and Research Service
November 21, 2016
In July, thousands of us took action to stop dangerous new radiation guidance for drinking water. The EPA refused to listen, and now this guidance could be approved anytime–unless we act now!
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy is on the verge of approving radiation levels hundreds and thousands of times higher than currently allowed in drinking water and at cleaned-up Superfund sites. These mis-named “Protective” Action Guides for Drinking Water (Water PAGs) dramatically INCREASE allowable radioactivity in water. Enormous levels of invisible but deadly radioactive contamination would be permitted in drinking water for weeks, months or even years after a nuclear accident or “incident.” The PAGs are not for the immediate phase after a radioactive release but the next phase–which could last for years–when local residents may return home to contaminated water and not know the danger.
Take action now: Protect drinking water from dangerous radiation levels!
There are two quick actions to take today:
- Tell your EPA Regional Administrator (see map and list below) to ask EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy why she is raising radiation levels allowed in drinking water.
- Send a message to Administrator McCarthy yourself asking her not to approve these dangerous radiation levels in drinking water.
We have stopped PAGs like these from being approved before–and we can do it again. EPA insiders attempted to push these dangerous guides through in the waning days of the Bush administration, and public pressure like this got the agency to pull them back. Now we have to do it again!
Click here to take action now.
Thanks for all you do!
Diane D’Arrigo
Radioactive Waste Project Director
More Information
The PAGs protect the polluters from liability, not the public from radiation. CHECK out this NBC4 News Story.
These PAGs are a bad legacy. Approving them now is a deceptive way to circumvent the Safe Drinking Water Act, Superfund cleanup levels, and EPA’s history of limiting the allowable risk of cancer to 1 in a million people exposed (or at most 1 in 10,000 in worst-case scenarios).
The PAGs don’t just affect water!
- They markedly relax long-term cleanup standards.
- They set very high and outdated radiation levels allowable in food.
- They eliminate requirements to evacuate people vulnterable to high radiation doses to the thyroid and skin.
- They eliminate limits on lifetime whole body radiation exposures.
- And they recommend dumping radioactive waste in municipal garbage dumps not designed for such waste.
Outrageously, EPA is expanding the kinds of radioactive ‘incidents’ that would be allowed to give off these dangerously high levels and doses. PAGs originally applied to huge nuclear disasters like the nuclear power meltdowns at Fukushima or a dirty bomb BUT NOW they could ALSO apply to less dramatic releases from nuclear power reactors or radio-pharmaceutical spills, nuclear transport accidents, fires or any radioactive “incident” that “warrant[s] consideration of protective action.”
EPA REGIONS and REGIONAL ADMINISTRATORS
Region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding
(617) 918-1010
spalding.curt@epa.gov;
Region 2 Administrator Judith Enck
(212) 637-5000
enck.judith@epa.gov
Region 3 Administrator Cecil Rodrigues
(215) 814-2683
Rodrigues.cecil@Epa.gov
Region 4 Administrator Heather McTeer Toney
(404) 562-9900
McTeertoney.heather@Epa.gov
Region 5 Acting Administrator Robert A. Kaplan
(312) 886-3000
Kaplan.robert@Epa.gov
Region 6 Administrator Ron Curry
(214) 665-2100
Curry.ron@Epa.gov
Region 7 Administrator Mark Hague
(913) 551-7006
Hague.mark@Epa.gov
Region 8 Administrator Shaun McGrath
(303) 312-6532
McGrath.shaun@Epa.gov
Region 9 Acting Administrator Alexis Strauss
(415) 947-8000
Strauss.alexis@Epa.gov
Region 10 Administrator Dennis McLerran
(206) 553-1234
mclerran.dennis@epa.gov
For more info, contact Diane D’Arrigo at NIRS: dianed@nirs.org or 301-270-6477
http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5502/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1378216
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