Yes, the Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation is honing his chops as a genuine satin and sequins circus clown. His name is Larry Hartig, and he performed the classic banana gag live on the floor of the Capitol Building in Juneau this Wednesday during "command performance" address to the Senate Natural Resources Committee. The subject was radioactive contamination from Fukushima, now reaching the western waters and coast of North America.
Hartig insisted that "the state" (presumably Alaska) has not seen radiation levels of concern, from either tsunami debris washed up on shores or in the water offshore. Neglecting to mention that it's difficult to 'see' something no one is monitoring for, Hartig went on to say he has no plans to start monitoring, either.
"We're talking about such small units in the millionths, billionths or trillionths level and how you relate to a dose that's relevant to people. It just shows that you get more radiation risk from eating a banana than eating a tuna in that area."
The Commissioner neglected to explain what, exactly, "it" is that "shows" bananas are a radiation risk (but Fukushima apparently is not). Unless "it" is the 0.0117% of primordial potassium that is radioactive (K40). Which the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency explains clearly, per what 'the deal' with K40 on planet earth really is...
The human body is born with potassium-40 in its tissues and it is the most common radionuclide in human tissues and in food. We evolved in the presence of potassium-40 and our bodies have well-developed repair mechanisms to respond to its effects. The concentration of potassium-40 in the human body is constant and not affected by concentrations in the environment.
Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, a 24-year old legislator in the Alaska House, echoed Hartig's deep analysis for the Alaskan public, throwing in the also-classic
"dilution is the solution to pollution" gag -
But remember! This is radiation measured off Fukushima, Japan. It's many thousands of miles away from Alaska. I may have voted against the bill weakening cruise ship wastewater standards, but Fukushima radiation is a classic example for which the solution to pollution is in fact dilution.
[...] To be clear: there may well be more radiation in a banana (and who doesn't love bananas?) than off our Alaska coast.
Kreiss-Tomkins is apparently a big fan of Ken Buesseler's, from whom he stole his best punch lines. Such as, "the Pacific is safe, and so is our seafood." Even though Kreiss-Tomkins did add his own zany one-liner:
But we absolutely need to cautiously monitor the situation.
Zany because, of course, the Commissioner of Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation "has no plans" to ever do any monitoring! LOL!!! Well, slap my knee. These guys are just entertaining as hell, aren't they?
P.S. Despite what self-appointed health physics 'experts' like oceanographer Ken Buesseler and political/industrial comic relief like Hartig and Kreiss-Tomkins have to say about things they have no expertise in, radiation exposures remain cumulative in nature. That means they add up, they do not cancel out. Oh, and the EPA as well as the NRC do still accept the zero threshold model of exposures, in which there is no level of radiation below which exposures can be considered "harmless."