Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript

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The first elevated levels of radiation in the U.S. from the
accident were received from the Pacific Northwest Laboratory
in Richland, Washington, on May 5. ERAMS detected the first
elevated levels of radioactivity in air at ground level in
the U.S . on May 7.
The daily precipitation (rainwater) samples showed a number
of cities with detectable levels of iodine-131 resulting from the
nuclear reactor accident. The highest deposition level reported
was 12,300 picocuries per square meter (pCi/m2) in Montpelier,
Vermont.
As a frame of reference, the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration's protective action recommendations for
ground water deposits of iodine-131 is 130,000 pCi/m2. This
is the level that FDA recommends for local public health
officials to take protective action to avoid domestic food
contamination. Thus, the 12,300 level represented less than
ten percent of the FDA level and was not considered to pose
any threat to public health or welfare.
The Governor of the State of Oregon issued an advisory May 7
for people who used rainwater as their sole source of drinking
water to refrain from drinking rainwater at that time. The first
positive milk samples were reported by ERAMS on May 13.
The Task Force Report iater concluded that the U.S. radiation
monitoring network had recorded sporadic and detectable levels
of radiation from the Soviet accident in most areas of the
country but these levels posed no health or environmental threat.