ExposureBlog

Daniel W. Miles, a former physics professor at Dixie College in Utah offers another perspective on breathing radioactive dust.  Short version: the (presumably) typical Utah garden contains naturally-occurring radioactive materials, so breathing radioactive dust isn’t so bad. 

I have some problems with this view.  First of all, Miles compares his garden’s radioactivity to something that is still unknown—the radioactivity of the soon-to-be-generated dust cloud.  He’s comparing apples and oranges. . .er, actually—his radioactive tomatoes, cucumbers and squash with some unknown stuff from Area 16 of the Nevada Test Site.  And while I’m sure we could find thorium, uranium and radon in most places, I believe we’d be hard-pressed to find such isotopes as cesium-137, strontium-90, curium-242 and plutonium in our back yards.  Yet those radioisotopes are probably buried a few inches below the surface at Area sixteen’s ground zero. 

Dr. Miles may save money on the candles for his Halloween pumpkin, and good for him. But we still should identify those radioisotopes at Area 16 before we spread them around the country.