From his lumber yard in Middletown, Eddie Costik can see the cooling towers of Three Mile Island nuclear plant.
Thirty-two years to the day after a partial meltdown at the plant created America's worst nuclear disaster, state officials on Monday were talking about traces of radiation found in rainwater near his yard. This time they likely came from the Japanese power plant crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Costik, 58, said he's not concerned.
"Every time you turn on the news you get a different story from the (Japanese) government. It's no different than the U.S. Everyone is trying to cover their you-know-what," Costik said.
State officials said there's no need to worry.
The state Department of Environmental Protection said rainwater samples collected near two nuclear plants found levels of Iodine-131, an isotope created in nuclear power generation that doesn't occur naturally, were far below what is considered dangerous, according to Gov. Tom Corbett. Those levels are diluted further when rainwater makes its way into reservoirs and other sources of drinking water.
Tests of drinking water in six areas, including Pittsburgh, found normal radiation levels, Corbett said.
"The bottom line is our public drinking water is safe," Corbett said.
Twelve air monitoring stations around the country picked up isotopes believed to be from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced. The state Department of Environmental Protection is conducting its own tests, expected to be completed this week.
The rainwater and air contained lower doses of radiation than people are exposed to by medical X-rays and X-ray machines at airports.
The detection of radiation in Pennsylvania "is a testament to the accuracy of modern measurement devices," said Kenneth Bergeron, a physicist and former scientist at Sandia National Laboratory, where he worked on nuclear accident simulations.
"There is no possibility that quantities of significance to anyone's health could have made it halfway around the world," Bergeron said. "The distances involved are just astronomical."
Worries such as these divert attention from the life-altering repercussions that residents of northern Japan will face when they return home, Bergeron said. Regular monitoring of radiation in food, water and people will become a way of life there, he said.
"People who live within 20 or 30 miles of Fukushima are going to have their lives severely affected," Bergeron said.
The radiation level detected in Pennsylvania rainwater ranged from 40 to 100 picocuries per liter, or about 25 times lower than would prompt concern, Corbett's office said. The samples came from near Three Mile Island in Dauphin County and the Limerick nuclear plant in Montgomery County.
Christopher Abruzzo, Corbett's deputy chief of staff, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires testing of water both upstream and downstream of the nuclear plants, as well as milk, plant life and air. Nuclear energy companies share the results with the DEP, he said.
If people drank rainwater with the highest level of radiation detected by the tests, they would have to drink two liters per day for three consecutive months to reach the radiation level of three chest x-rays, Abruzzo said.
"There is no safe level of radiation. Any radiation exposure increases the chance of cancer, (but) this is a very, very low dose of radiation," said Dr. Ira Helfand, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
