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 Currently Elevated Levels Of Radiation In The U.S. 
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Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 7:40 pm
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Location: Illinois
I noticed today that there has recently been a large part of the Central & Eastern U.S. that has elevated levels being detected.

Screen shot available here:
https://ibb.co/kSRfMa

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MY OUTSIDE RADIATION MONITORING STATION:
South Beloit, Illinois - GMC200 Outside on HEPA air purifier, ground level, facing West.
http://netc.com/chart/view.php?n=1%3AEB5A139C


Mon Aug 14, 2017 8:59 pm
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Location: St. Charles, IL
I noticed that as well. My detector went over 150 cpm early in the morning on Monday and stayed in 100s until around noon. I verified readings with second detector.

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Mon Aug 14, 2017 9:55 pm
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EB789320 wrote:
I noticed that as well. My detector went over 150 cpm early in the morning on Monday and stayed in 100s until around noon. I verified readings with second detector.


I remember that you recently changed your filter and so did I. Before I changed my filter (which was 30 days old) I was already detecting elevated levels. That is out of the ordinary to get elevated readings off a filter that is 30 days old as you know. It is common to get some elevated levels within a week after changing my filter, but clearly the elevated levels from my unit and the units around the U.S. verify elevated levels.

I see that the EPA Aurora Illinois gamma RadNet station near you shows elevated readings as of 08/15/2017 in the a.m.


Attachments:
Screenshot 2017-08-15 at 7.12.05 AM-min.png
Screenshot 2017-08-15 at 7.12.05 AM-min.png [ 70.14 KiB | Viewed 105009 times ]

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MY OUTSIDE RADIATION MONITORING STATION:
South Beloit, Illinois - GMC200 Outside on HEPA air purifier, ground level, facing West.
http://netc.com/chart/view.php?n=1%3AEB5A139C
Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:17 am
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As I do more research, I believe that I might have found a valid possible source of these recent elevated radiation readings. Taking a screen capture from the NETC free animated radiation history map, I see an elevated reading at three of the EPA RadNet gamma stations near each other. In an effort to save NETC bandwidth (limited funding you know) I have used a free hosting site for the screen capture: https://ibb.co/mPduWa

It has been reported that the Quad Cities nuclear reactor number 2 was shutdown for maintenance from 12:05 am CDT on August 6 and was started up again this past Sunday August 13, 2017. I am not yet sure if the shutdown was a slow controlled shutdown or a SCRAM. The outage was reported to do maintenance on the main transformer. As we know, nuclear reactors release more radiation during a SCRAM than during a slow controlled shutdown. Furthermore, elevated levels of radiation are released during a reactor start-up. I should mention that the EPA and & NRC say these are all safe levels. I believe what many nuclear experts believe, less radiation is best.

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MY OUTSIDE RADIATION MONITORING STATION:
South Beloit, Illinois - GMC200 Outside on HEPA air purifier, ground level, facing West.
http://netc.com/chart/view.php?n=1%3AEB5A139C


Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:57 am
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The NRC reactor status report shows the Quad Cities 2 reactor was at:

0% August 11, 2017
14% August 12, 2017
46% August 13, 2017
70% August 14, 2017
84% August 15, 2017

If the only maintenance truly done was to just a transformer, I would assume we should see this reactor continue to climb up slowly to 100% power shortly. If we see the reactor decrease in power within the next week or so, that would cause me some concern as to what old or new problem might have happened.

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MY OUTSIDE RADIATION MONITORING STATION:
South Beloit, Illinois - GMC200 Outside on HEPA air purifier, ground level, facing West.
http://netc.com/chart/view.php?n=1%3AEB5A139C


Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:22 am
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This press release from the nuclear plants parent company is interesting:

Quote:
AUGUST 7, 2017
CORDOVA, Ill. – Exelon Generation operators removed Quad Cities Unit 2 from service at 12:05 a.m. Sunday to repair a component on the unit’s main power transformer, which transfers electricity from the nuclear plant to the electrical grid. While the unit is offline, technicians will inspect, repair and fully test the transformer before returning Unit 2 to service.


LINK TO SOURCE: http://www.exeloncorp.com/newsroom/quad-cities-unit-2-offline-for-maintenance

While this likely is true, it's interesting to note that according to the NRC Reactor Status Report records, the Quad Cities unit 2 reactor was not taken offline slowly as often done during scheduled maintenance. On August 5, 2017 it was running at 100% power and on August 6, 2017 it shows 0% power. It appears no automatic emergency SCRAM was triggered that normally causes the same such rapid shutdown of the reactor yet no mention in the press release of a "scheduled" shutdown either. I believe this likely means the emergency SCRAM can't detect or didn't detect this transformer failure and the operators had to do an unscheduled manual shutdown of the reactor for maintenance.

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MY OUTSIDE RADIATION MONITORING STATION:
South Beloit, Illinois - GMC200 Outside on HEPA air purifier, ground level, facing West.
http://netc.com/chart/view.php?n=1%3AEB5A139C


Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:49 am
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Interesting now the elevated levels moved eastward. Caught up in air currents?

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Wed Aug 16, 2017 7:31 am
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Also note that the removal from service occurred at 12:05 am. The decision to shut it down must have been made shortly after the component failure. There is no NRC Event Notification Report, so it must not have been deemed an emergency or safety problem.

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Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:10 pm
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Bert490 wrote:
Also note that the removal from service occurred at 12:05 am. The decision to shut it down must have been made shortly after the component failure. There is no NRC Event Notification Report, so it must not have been deemed an emergency or safety problem.


The NRC Event Notifications can sometimes be posted long after the event.

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MY OUTSIDE RADIATION MONITORING STATION:
South Beloit, Illinois - GMC200 Outside on HEPA air purifier, ground level, facing West.
http://netc.com/chart/view.php?n=1%3AEB5A139C


Fri Aug 18, 2017 5:56 am
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Great catch and thx for all the info!

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Tue Aug 22, 2017 7:16 am
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