Oklahoma DEQ “Aware” Of Alarming YouTube Radioactive Rain Video

By Andrew W. Griffin
Red Dirt Report, editor And Intel Hub Contributing Writer
August 10, 2011
theintelhub.com

OKLAHOMA CITY – A YouTube video currently making the rounds on a number of alternative news websites – including Red Dirt Report and our friends at The Intel Hub – is garnering a lot of attention, including from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, regarding radiation levels detected following a recent rainfall.

In the video, filmed by a YouTube user named “FireByNight,” wipes an Oklahoma City trash bin lid with a napkin and then monitors the radioactivity in the rain-soaked napkin sample with a small, Russian-made, handheld Soeks brand Geiger counter.

During the video, blandly titled “Aug 6, 2011 Oklahoma City First Rain Since Drought Started,” FireByNight the reading rises to 1.62 millisieverts (mSv) per hour which shows how much radiation could be absorbed per hour by the human body.

Aug 6, 2011 Oklahoma City First Rain Since Drought Started

The Geiger counter also notes that this is a“dangerous background radiation” level. Now, the question we have is this related to the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power complex in Japan, which continues to leak radiation, or is this something else? A volcanic eruption, perhaps, or even a bad reading from the device?

With so little official information being released on this topic, even in Japan, shockingly enough, the public is kept largely in the dark on this matter.

Anyway, back in March, Red Dirt Report was curious to find out “if anything has been detected in Oklahoma that could be connected to the radioactive plume that has since covered much of the Northern Hemisphere,” as we wrote in our March 31st article “Japan nuke catastrophe monitored from afar – here in Oklahoma.”

At the time we spoke to Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality spokeswoman Skylar McElhaney. She told us that two stationary radiation monitors – one here in Oklahoma City and another in Tulsa – were designed to detect radiation in the air.

So, in light of this alarming YouTube video from FireByNight, we again contacted DEQ’s Skylar McElhaney and asked if they were still monitoring the radiation issue and also if they were aware of the YouTube video that is getting a lot of attention online.

Via email, McElhaney wrote that DEQ monitors the air and “does not sample rain water.” She included a link in the email, taking us to an EPA.gov RadNet page that shows the “Near-Real-Time Gross Gamma Count Rate Data in Oklahoma City” between April 12 and August 10, 2011.

Other than small spikes on approximately April 30 and May 20, the gamma radiation monitored was pretty steady, and as McElhaney noted in her email “we feel that there is not a public health threat related to radiation in Oklahoma City.”

Interestingly, McElhaney also wrote that DEQ was “aware of the YouTube video.”

Meanwhile, FireByNight is continuing to monitor rain samples from his trash bin and has a newer video which was posted here. These videos are quite similar to the “Connecting Dots” YouTube videos out of Canada where the user monitors rainfall.

His Geiger counter goes to an alarmingly high level while sampling rain off his car in the Lake Louise, Alberta area of the Canadian Rockies. Radioactive fallout from the Fukushima disaster is believed to have blanketed large swaths of western North America.

We will follow-up with any additional information as it comes our way.

Copyright 2011 West Marie Media