Ambient office  =  81 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 135 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 137 nanosieverts per hour

Bartlett pear from Central Market = 133 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 58 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 52 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office  =77 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 124 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 123 nanosieverts per hour

Beefsteak tomato from Central Market = 125 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 73 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 69 nanosieverts per hour

Dover sole – Caught in USA = 100 nanosieverts per hour

       Westinghouse, a major U.S. corporation, owns and operates the Bluff Road nuclear fuel fabrication facility near Columbia, South Carolina. The plant was built in 1969 and employs about one thousand people. It is one of a few facilities in the U.S. that makes nuclear fuel assemblies for commercial nuclear power plants.
        In 2016, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) inspectors discovered that unsafe levels of uranium had built up in an air pollution control device at the facility. The buildup of the uranium could have led to the release of a small burst of radiation that would have endangered nearby workers. Following the discovery of the uranium buildup, the NRC has been carrying out more inspections and more atomic-safety violations have been found there.
       In 2017, there were two minor violations at the plant including the failure of a safety system that was supposed to prevent the accumulation of water in ducts. More recently, Westinghouse failed to provide documentation of its efforts to prevent a small radiation burst. They did not properly study and explain exactly how they would ensure that radioactive, fifty five gallon drums did not react with nuclear materials leaking from a solvent extraction area. According to the NRC, the violation was a relatively low one as far as safety was concerned but it is still an indication that the NRC should have watch the operations at the plant closely.

      Westinghouse is attempting to renew its NRC operating license. Spokesmen for Westinghouse have admitted that the company had inadequate safety controls in 2016 and that it has worked to improve them since then. According to Mike Annacone, the factory vice president who was assigned to correct the problems, significant progress has been made. Workers are encouraged to report any potential safety problems and are rewarded for their reporting. The company has also upgraded equipment and has made double-checks a routine part of procedures at the plant.
       Annacone said “I have not had a (financial need) that was not supported by our company. That’s important. Our company has been going through bankruptcy and recovering from bankruptcy, and through that entire time period, we’ve been fully supported with what we need to move the plant forward.”
       A Westinghouse spokeswoman said, “We are instilling values and improving processes in our organization, intently focused on effectively monitoring our own performance, and promptly self-identifying and correcting problems. Our goal is to find and fix issues before they become significant or before others have to identify them. When problems do self-reveal or are identified by others, we critically assess why we did not find that issue and focus on not only fixing the problem but fixing why we did not self-identify it.”
       The NRC does believe that Westinghouse has made the facility safer for the one thousand workers and the public who live nearby. An NRC inspector said, “We’re seeing good behavior, and their management is reinforcing that. It’s going to take a little time, improving the safety culture, but they are on the right path.”

Ambient office  = 85 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 154 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 150 nanosieverts per hour

Orange carrot from Central Market = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 70 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 56 nanosieverts per hour

      The U.S. Navy operated a nuclear power reactor at McMurdo Station in Antarctica from 1962 to 1973. The reactor was similar to the reactors on U.S. Navy vessels and it supplied electricity and desalinated water to the McMurdo Station. There were over four hundred documented safety problems at the reactor during that period of time. The last problem was a leak in a cooling unit which prompted the Navy to shut down and decommission the reactor.
       The U.S. Navy decided that the soil under the decommissioned nuclear power plant had to be dug up and shipped away. The soil that was downhill from the reactor was also targeted for removal. In total, about twelve thousand cubic yards of soil was removed from around the reactor.
       Big, open dump trucks full of dirt from the reactor site drove through McMurdo Station to reach the docks. The dirt was dumped at the docks and then loaded into the holds of ships with a big bucket on a crane. The dirt landed in a big pile in the middle of the hold and was shoveled around to level the pile by men without any protective gear. There were no briefings or warnings of any kind according for the men who worked on the loading. A Geiger counter was waved over the workers as they left at the end of the shift. Some of the U.S. workers who loaded the ships got cancer and died.
       The window of one of the U.S. workers who died from cancer fought with the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs for decades until, in 2017, the Department acknowledged that the cancers that killed her husband were probably caused by exposure to radiation that could only have come from the period during which her deceased husband worked loading contaminated soil at McMurdo Station during the 1970s when he was stationed there. The widow says that she knows of sixty-seven former U.S. servicemen who worked at McMurdo Station and eventually got cancer.
       Soldiers, scientists, contractors and administrative staff from the nearby New Zealand base were often at McMurdo. Some of them lived at the U.S. base and others visited for work and recreation. The New Zealand government says that at least six hundred New Zealanders visited the McMurdo Station between 1960 and 1980.
        Some of the New Zealand soldiers who worked on loading the radioactive soil from the reactor site eventually became activists to obtain recognition and help for New Zealanders who worked on the ships. Some of the New Zealanders who worked on removing the dirt have developed cancers that the New Zealand government have concluded are related to the reactor and contaminated soil at McMurdo Station. A few notices were posted on the Internet in January of 2018 by the New Zealand Department of Health to the effect that there was a possibility that anyone who worked at McMurdo during the 1960s and 1970s might have been exposed to radiation, especially if they worked on soil removal.

 

Ambient office  = 66 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 141 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 148 nanosieverts per hour

Orange bell pepper from Central Market = 125 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 92 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 86 nanosieverts per hour