Sometimes it feels as if governmental agencies prioritize in ways that are beyond the ordinary person’s understanding. The most recent headscratcher is the release of 850 tons of “filtered” water that was once used to cool nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant, which, as you know, suffered the worst radioactive accident in the past century in March of 2011. A third-party has claimed that “the radioactive content was below measurable limits”, permitting the plant to release the filtered water directly into the ocean. This raises the question: what measurable limits are we going by? Is “just a little radioactively harmful” permissible by this standard?
The parody we find in this is endless. What a brave new world we live in. We can release 850 tons of potentially radioactive water into the ocean, but at the same time, there are strenuous regulations (and a lack of incentives) for those wanting to implement rainwater capture systems and/or graywater recycling systems.
By: Jay Berstein
