Rutland Herald Newspaper
ENVY PR guys repeat lies over and over. That is the strategy. There's no risk to the public... that's what the cigarette companies said for decades. Now we know differently, and people can make their own choices about exposing themselves to the health risks of smoking, or exposing their children to the harmful effects of second-hand smoke. With tritium, or radioactive water, you can't see it, smell it or taste it, but it can remain in your body for months, repeatedly irradiating tissues it becomes bound in. This is true whether you drink it or inhale it as a gas or vapor.It can be deadly. The fact is, the reportable limit for radioactive contaminants is not the same as the safe limit. The goal for the public is to receive zero excess radiation over background from nuclear reactors, because background alone is enough to generate cancers, especially in children's rapidly dividing cells. Just one hit in one cell by one radiation track is enough to start a cancer. Every cancer starts from damage to the machinery in one cell. But the officials continue to say with a crocodile smile that there is no health risk. What this masks, is the fact that the contamination is increasing, and ENVY is continuing to pump this stuff into the leaking pipe, driving up the concentration in the monitoring well, and pushing the plume outwards through the groundwater. WHY HAVEN'T THE REGULATORS SHUT THEM DOWN until the leak is found, stopped and repaired up to modern day standards for pipes carrying radionuclides? Why do they get to keep pumping out more and more? Why is the pedal still to the metal, 120% of the designed operating level for the old leaking rust bucket? Because ENVY, NRC and state regulators keep the focus on permissible levels, instead of safe levels. The public has not had the opportunity to debate this. Instead, they keep being told, over and over again, that they have a 100% chance of beating the cancer lottery. That is simply not true, it is not ethical, and it is irresponsible.
On Tuesday, the editors of the Rutland Herald covered last week’s hearing in Vermont and decided that the debate about the drinking age is one worth having:
“McCardell is doing us a service by drawing attention to the pathology of drinking that exists around the nation. His view was shaped by his years as president of Middlebury College, where he saw the toll taken by the binge drinking and other immature behavior caused by the 21-year-old legal age and the need for students to socialize in secret. Even if discussion of a lower age is mostly abstract, it is useful for how it forces us to recognize the ways we encourage our young people to behave in a self-destructive fashion.”
The editors also pointed out that the result of Legal Age 21 is “to sequester those below 21 into dorm rooms or forest clearings where the excitement of the forbidden gives an extra thrill to the excesses that occur.” To put it bluntly, they wrote, “It is as if we want kids to go off by themselves beyond the reach of common sense.”
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