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Comment by destitude | Hacker News Reader

Meanwhile in Minnesota the largest nuclear plant in the state shut down for repairs because it had been leaking radioactive water into the ground. They also didn't inform the public for months after it was discovered.

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Bananas are "radioactive", you are "radioactive". In none of these "incidents" was anyone or anything in actual danger.

A single hallway exit sign contains three times more tritium than all the leaked water.

No disclosure needed for something as minor as this.

Hiding problems is what has caused this level of distrust. Disclosure is very much needed.

There is required disclosure, certainly for anything on the INES scale and for lots and lots of things below that. But there will always be some kind of lower limit to the reporting requirements, so things don't get ridiculous. Currently we are at "not allowed to bring anything glow-in-the-dark" into a nuclear facility because the tritium contained therein will light up all alarms and trigger reporting requirements.

How much lower should the reporting limit be? "Someone brought a banana for lunch!"? You can certainly measure "elevated levels of radioactivity at 5123456mBq!" there and then claim a coverup because nobody reported it...

Maybe make them low enough that details of the worst nuclear incedent in the US don't get covered up for 30 years?

It's not just Minnesota. Nuclear plants around the country leak Tritium almost constantly...but if it's below some figure (in the range of hundreds of thousands of gallons of contaminated water), no disclosure of any kind is required.

"Contaminated water" is a very misleading phrase, because the more of it there is, the less danger it poses (from "almost none" to "none").

All the water in the ocean is contaminated and is radioactive: it has naturally-occurring uranium in it.

Sounds like the perfect place to hide a million tons of radioactive Fukushima water.

Exactly, since the radioactive Fukushima water is actually less radioactive than regular ocean water.

Some don't like the idea of releasing it:

https://www.naml.org/policy/documents/2022-12-12%20Position%...

(US) National Association of Marine Laboratories: https://insidestory.org.au/water-water-everywhere/

Hell I leak tritium too, couple times a day.

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