For the record: EPA data from Raleigh, NC---BEFORE the website switch

I just want to put this data on the internet in a public place. I am making no assumptions about the data, nor suggesting it is anything of concern. DO NOT FREAK OUT. I have emailed the EPA about this particular data, gotten no reply so far (will update if I do), and now the website has been overhauled so that the links for the Query page and the data map no longer work---they redirect you to their generic Japan page. The new map has the most scrubbed and dumbed-down data I have ever seen, and there is no query function, even for past data.

Of particular concern to me is the Raleigh, NC data. It has insanely high numbers, which made me think it was some sort of research detector with a huge sample size, detecting even the tiniest and least harmful particles (NOTE: I could use some help with that part---anyone shed some light on such a detector?). As I said, I emailed about this and have gotten no reply so far, but on the new map the data for Raleigh looks bare-----because their graph only goes up to 1,000, well below ANY of the data for that site (there was no data before March 18th or so, for at least 3 months). There are no Beta Gross Count numbers listed. This set off my tin-foil-hat alarms, so I want to get the previous data public in case my computer just up and dies or something. The query results include the sample size, if that helps anyone with the weirdness of this data.

Here are my screenshots of the graph with the Raleigh results, and the screenshots of all the raw data on the query result page. I'm even including the query page just for verification of the graphed numbers and proof I was able to get on and query.

ETA: these pictures have tiny print, but if you want to read the numbers you can go to my ATS media page or profile or whatever, and they're all there, rbeta1-rebta12.


















Note that the blacked-out areas on the shots are the quick links for my bank, my husband's college, and the email address I use for personal email, none of which I want y'all knowing. Nothing else has been changed.

Please post what you find. Thanks for backing this up. The Shearon Harris Nuclear Generating Station has a history of security problems and other issues that the NRC has basically ignored or dismissed. Worries the hell out of me.

Holy Crap! You're right.

The EPA has "dumbed down" RadNet.

You can't run any reports anymore. Everything on the site is geared around how the radiation levels from Japan which are being picked up in the U.S. are "thousands of times below any conservative level of concern".

We need to find other methods to monitor radiation in the U.S.

Do they say where in Raleigh these measurements are from?

And do they specify the units? If those units are in micro Roentgen per hour it might not be all that high but I have no idea what the units are, I can't read the fine print and I don't know how to find your media page. Note the radioactive source inside your smoke detector at home is probably 0.9 microcurie of americium-241 (that's about 1/5000 of a gram) and measures 360,000 micro Roentgen per hour on the Bicron 2000 meter according to this:

www.vaughns-1-pagers.com...

Did you know that? Well that may be a typo, but I can tell you that there are about 33,000 atoms decaying and emitting radiation PER SECOND just from that small source in your smoke detector. That's 118 MILLION nuclear transformations per hour which emit a particle of radiation, just from a smoke detector. Related info: home.howstuffworks.com...

Of course the detector can't count them all so it will count substantially less than 118 million, but that's how many there are. and essentially they won't hurt you though I don't recommend easing smoke detector nuclear sources as a dietary supplement.

When I was a student I got a tour inside the control room of the small nuclear reactor in Raleigh, it looked pretty safe to me, but they made me promise to not touch any controls. It's a tiny reactor though for teaching and training purposes.

Other than that, I think the nearest commercial reactor is probably Shearon Harris, 22 miles southeast of Raleigh, I've toured the inside of that facility too but they wouldn't let me in the control room. Given the primary cause of both major nuclear disasters before Japan was operator error, that's a good policy.

I also used to handle radioactive materials and had to wear one of those dosimiter badge things to make sure I wasn't getting radiation over acceptable limits. I had to get all kinds of NRC-approved training about radiation to do that. So I do know something about radiation, but I can't read the fine print in your screencaps so I can't help with that until I can read it.

I just found this:

epa.gov...

"Due to the events in Japan and the heightened interest in radiation monitoring data, EPA has developed new content RadNet Map View which contains monitoring data and additional contextual information from EPA's Radiation Protection Programs. Please visit the following website EPA has developed to help the public interpret this data: www.epa.gov..."

Hmm, I just noticed that even on my ATS media page the text is unreadable. All the numbers are represented in the graph, but I will go set up a Photobucket account so I can upload them there and you can zoom in to read it all. Give me a little while, and I'll post the link.

reply to post by 00nunya00


Interesting thread, OP.

I would find it very disturbing if they do not politely offer even a canned response. I look forward to reading what they send.

Interesting FAQ from EPA:

"How will EPA share this data?

•The near-real-time air monitoring data are continually reviewed by computer and are usually posted to EPA’s Central Data Exchange website within 2 hours of arriving at the laboratory.

•If the results show an abnormality in radiation levels, EPA laboratory staff is alerted immediately and reviews the data to ensure accuracy before posting."

www.epa.gov...

Can anyone help me with a photo site that doesn't resize your photos down automatically or at least allows the option of leaving them at full resolution? PB is freaking resizing these down to like 800x600 and they're unreadable again. They're actually 1920x1080.

reply to post by BattleStarGal

I thought CNN and HLN were saying levels were billions of times less the those considered to be dangerous to humans. Now it is thousands? That's a big change in a short period of time. Wtf.

reply to post by 00nunya00
My monitors are actually 1920x1200 so I understand the problem, most sites aren't friendly to screencaps that big, so I usually either crop the image if that is possible, or else I go into my display settings and temporarily change the display mode to something smaller like 640x480. Even 640 is a bit wide for ATS which will only display 600 pixels wide so 40 pixels get cut off even when I do that, but usually I can trim off the edges to get it to fit.

Most of the sites I know of automatically resize the photo if it's more than a certain size.

But you're not showing photos, you're showing screenshots so you have a more basic problem, your file type is incorrect. You are using jpgs for screenshots, that's a no-no, because they come out fuzzy, jpg is for photos, not screenshots.

The format you need for screenshots is .png, portable network graphic. That doesn't make the letters fuzzy like jpg does.

If you don't have software to do that I recommend FastStone capture v5.2, available here:

www.oldapps.com...

There are newer versions, but as far as I know the newer versions aren't free, that older version is free and it works great. It defaults to png for screenshots.

Edit to add: With FastStone, you don't have to capture the full screen. You can select an area below the tabs you don't want us to see and then you won't have to hide the tabs.

Here we go, made the settings stop resizing it to 1024x768; now it just resizes them maybe 100 pizels, and they're still very readable: Photobucket EPA screenshot album

Now, this shows the sample volume for each reading, and it gets bigger every time, even when there's no beta count. What does that have to do with? I never looked at the sample volume for any other cities (because I was never trying to figure out what was going on), so I can't compare it to anything else. What's it all about? Do most detectors have their sample volume continue to get bigger and bigger as time goes on? And why does the volume get bigger, even when there are dips and peaks along the way?

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Crap, I wish I had known that earlier! I have Paint set to save as JPG automatically because Windows Live Gallery (HATE HATE HATE) only works with that or something----it doesn't play nice with PNG (can't resize or crop it, which is all I ever really do with photos). I don't have any of the data on my browser now because like I said, I tried clicking Forward and it clean refreshed the page, which it had never done in 2 days before that. Lost even my main query page, which I was going to try to use to query something else once I was done with the screenshots. Never got the chance before I went to make sure I had everything from that results page one more time before I ran a new query.


Ah---and one more thing; I can verify the numbers of Raleigh as not being a hoax or some BS because I posted them in the Nuclear Crisis thread BEFORE the data was offline, and I was asking there for someone to help me understand them----hoping they could use the raw data to figure out what kind of detector it was or whatever. This post

reply to post by 00nunya00
I understand completely. You may still want to download that screen capture program, it's free and even if it won't help clarify these screenshots, perhaps it can help in the future. png is definitely the format to use for screenshots.

Update!!!!!!!!

All the data is still available after registration. No need to worry about the data being hidden; they just want registration info.

NOW! Can anyone help me figure out what exactly this super-detector is? Why does it sample such a seemingly huge volume of radiation? I've been Googling for research detectors and whatnot, and can't find anything. Why are they sampling such an insanely sensitive level of data, if that is indeed why the numbers are so large?

Originally posted by 00nunya00
Update!!!!!!!!

All the data is still available after registration. No need to worry about the data being hidden; they just want registration info.

Oh no problem- here goes:

John Doe, 123 Anystreet, Anytown, PA 93762
email to: [email protected]

Any info beyond that, I'm not giving out to EPA.

reply to post by Chakotay


I used my real info. I can explain why I believed it to be okay to register for supposedly public data; I can't, however, explain why I supplied false information to a government entity. They get a little more angry about that one. If I were the webmaster, I might actually flag that user account because they used obviously fake info (not to mention that your IP is recorded when you register----they'll find you if they want to find you).

I started clicking some of the "fixed" dots here:

www.epa.gov...

Most of them seem to work, but Raleigh is odd because it has no beta info, and the gamma info doesn't start until after the Japan quake.

The graphs for Phoenix and El Paso say they are out of service etc.

I have no idea why Raleigh currently shows no beta info, it wouldn't be out of line to contact them and ask them about it, since Raleigh doesn't have the out of service message for the beta chart like Phoenix and El Paso do.

They should be able to give you a better explanation than anyone on ATS.

The EPA data seems to correlate with some of the public gathered data, for example some of the natural readings around Denver seem to be higher, both on the EPA and on the public motoring site.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Yeah, on that new map, Raleigh *looks* like it has no beta info because they don't list past numbers (they took it offline to review the data a day or so ago, according to the status on the registration-only data) and the past numbers are all far above the 1,000 max range their chart displays. Sneaky! LOL

I did contact them about both the initial question of what kind of detector it is, why the high numbers, etc, and why they made the past data unviewable with the range of the graph. I was really level-headed and assuming there was a rational explanation in my email, so it wasn't just another "freak out!" email, LOL. Still waiting to hear back, and I will definitely update here if/when they respond!

Well they didn't get nuked so it could be cosmic rays.

If Earth's magnetic field failed.