# Grand Canyon NPS exposes tourists to radiation



## k2andcannoli (Feb 28, 2012)

Awesome...back when I ran adventure travel trips we would stop in there for a lecture. I spend roughly an hour per year in there for 9 years. 

How's it going Nate?


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## DidNotWinLottery (Mar 6, 2018)

The usual government panic and scare fest that will cost us a billion dollars some how. The fine print says "Five feet from the buckets, there was a zero reading."


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## Dsuth82 (Apr 2, 2012)

If you have a radiation detector you'll be surprised by the amount of background radiation you can find in the Southwest.


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## MontanaLaz (Feb 15, 2018)

You could get an acute dose in half a minute according to the article but be safe 5 feet away and would need to spend over seven hours in proximity to the bucket to get your annual exposure limit (as an adult).

I'm too lazy to look it up now but I work for a company that runs nuclear power plants and I recall reading that the limits set by the federal government can be exceeded by spending too much time near bananas (radioactive potassium). Please don't read this as me saying that my company is irresponsible, it just means that education of non-specialists is very important when discussing radiation.

I wonder how the exposure from the buckets stacks up to that of airline pilots and crew or astronauts?


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## Andy H. (Oct 13, 2003)

MontanaLaz said:


> it just means that education of non-specialists is very important when discussing radiation.


Amen to the education aspect. 



MontanaLaz said:


> I wonder how the exposure from the buckets stacks up to that of airline pilots and crew or astronauts?


Or just living at high altitude where we get exposed daily to much higher doses of radiation than folks at sea level. I remember hearing that the exposure "Action Level" (get out ASAP and come back with suits and extra gear) for the crews doing environmental cleanup work at the Savannah River radioactive waste site is the same as the natural background in Denver (or something like that).

-AH


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## semievolved (Nov 12, 2011)

And just to be a troublemaker (to be clear though, I am not excusing peoples' being exposed inadvertently without their consent!), there is strong evidence that low levels of radiation exposure can be protective against cancer. And, I am not talking super low either. Something in the range of 3-7 rem above background exposure results in a cancer mortality risk 70% of normal. For comparison, people at altitude (Denver) get somewhere around 1 rem annually from background radiation.


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## 50119 (Jan 17, 2016)

As a retired nuclear engineer friend of mine from California told me (me being like a Jethro Clampett).
"The solution to pollution is dilution". 
Sorta like peeing in the rivers, with what it might be flushing out of our bodies.


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## raymo (Aug 10, 2008)

MontanaLaz...I wonder how the exposure from the buckets stacks up to that of airline pilots and crew or astronauts??... I heard they were like God's and radiation bounces off of them, at least that is what my psychiatrist and cardiovascular surgeon told me. Also too, drain my coolers every day.


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## MontanaLaz (Feb 15, 2018)

raymo said:


> MontanaLaz...I wonder how the exposure from the buckets stacks up to that of airline pilots and crew or astronauts??... I heard they were like God's and radiation bounces off of them, at least that is what my psychiatrist and cardiovascular surgeon told me. Also too, drain my coolers every day.


:lol:

Need to add ski patrollers to that list


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## raymo (Aug 10, 2008)

MontanaLaz said:


> :lol:
> 
> Need to add ski patrollers to that list


No shit, they were like God's to me, when they dragged my sorry ass down a ski slope in Vail, I dislocated my shoulder and lost a ski, it's probably still up there, some 25 years later. When the three patrollers got me to the clinic, I made it a point to buy them drinks at their local watering hole that evening.


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