I have recently learned that the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget for new regulations called Protective Action Guides.
These new guides would, following any type of radioactive accident, increase acceptable levels of radioactivity in drinking water dozens to hundreds of times higher than those set by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The radioactivity could be from a nuclear bomb, a transport accident, or incident at a nuclear power plant, weapons facility or other site. These proposed changes are backed by the nuclear power industry and are contrary to results from recent health studies.
These guidelines would force the public to use contaminated water, possibly for years, before corrective action by polluters or the government would be mandated. Similar increases were proposed (and rejected) in the last months of the Bush administration and are now being proposed again by the nuclear industry as President Obama prepares to leave office. They must be stopped again.
Please contact Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Office of Management and Budget, and urge him to reject the EPA’s proposed increases for acceptable levels of radioactivity in drinking water in nuclear emergencies, at Shaun_L_Donovan@omb.eop.gov.
Lois Barber
Amherst
The author is the executive director of EarthAction and 2020 Action.