Texas officials covered up dangerously radioactive tap water for years

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But that is a complaint that cuts as much against the EPA as the Texan TCEQ - the former errs on the side of caution, the latter on the side of business; ultimately in both cases out of political considerations. As a consumer I'd rather have the former.

While the EPA may be overzealous in their regulations, the DeLay variety of Republicans despises and eschews regulation per se, and if they can't abolish the regulation, they try to weaken it, like by bickering about thresholds or calculation methods.

That later school of thought brought the US the Massey mine accident, with plenty of safety violations cited, and none sanctioned. The DeLay variety of Republicans in the Bush era had gutted the responsible oversight body MSHA, and called that 'business friendly' politics.

 

Doesn't that really depend on cost you'll bear as a consumer. If my chances of dying from cancer drop by a factor of one in two million at a cost of $5,000 per year is it really worth it? I know I can reduce my risk of melanoma even more by simply never going in the sun ... but I like being outside so I take the risk. It's basically the same.

By the way, residents in a municipal utility district near Austin were paying nearly $1,000 per month for water (with no way to opt out) back in the 90's. The reason was mostly political but driving the purification costs of water up could cause the same types of increases.

 

It's a matter of statistics and where the radiation hits. If it hits DNA, repairs aren't so simple.

In the case of alpha radiation, 'photon' was a misnomer, as you probably know. An alpha particle is an He4 nucleus. This makes a difference because these highly energetic particles can easily punch through a cell wall and wreak havoc inside, including damaging DNA. One lucky particle in one unlucky cell has the potential to create a cancer-causing mutation. It's very unlikely, but it's possible. For this reason, any reduction down to 0 means a reduction in risk. It may be a small reduction, but it's defensible if it's balanced against cost.

That last part is the issue, of course.

 

Not only was I unaware of this, I was unaware that such an atom existed. Hydrogen with an atomic mass of 4? I know deuterium (atomic mass 2) and tritium (atomic mass 3) - is there a word for hydrogen with an atomic mass of four - like quatrium or something?

EDIT: Actually, hydrogen-4 is called quadrium. After reading about it, I'm dubius that this could be the cuase of of most alpha radiation. According to the article, hydrogen-4 through hydrogen-7 are not not naturally occurring, and have only been synthesized in laboratories. Furthermore, while they do decay through nuetron emission, the half life of all of these isotopes is 10-22 seconds.

 

We assume he meant helium ... for those interested, an alpha is a helium nucleus (i.e., no electrons), a beta is usually an electron but it can also be a positron (not to be confused with a proton), and a gamma is a photon (basically high energy light). An alpha can penetrate approximately a tenth of a millimeter in tissue, a beta will travel a few millimeter in tissue, and a gamma will penetrate completely through the body unless it directly impacts the nucleus of an atom or an electron.

 

OK - I didn't realize he meant helium. Even people who aren't chemists like us usually know that hydrogen is "H" on the periodic table.

 

Sorry, yeah, that should have been He. Corrected. Funny how a small typo can change the meaning of things. Interestingly, I actually hit a real isotope of hydrogen. I had never heard of anything past tritium (H3), but there is an actual H4 (halflife of less than a day).

 

As I stated in my post on the previous page, the isotopes of hydrogen go all the way up to 7, but tritium is thie highest naturally occurring one. While you're "less than a day" statement is technically true, it's a heck of a lot less than that. It's half life is much shorter than a picosecond. As I also stated in that same post, it's estimated at 1.4 X 10-22 seconds. (Note, I cannot do superscripts here - I'm not saying it's 10-22 seconds - it's base 10 to the -22 power.) So it's half life is about 0.00000000000000000000014 seconds.