BOSTON — Small amounts of radioactive iodine, likely associated with Japan’s nuclear power plant crisis, were detected in rainwater in Massachusetts, the state’s Department of Public Health (DPH) announced Sunday.
The radioiodine was found in a precipitation sample taken during the past week at one of over 100 sample sites across the US that are part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) radiation monitoring system, the DPH said in a statement.
No detectable radiation was found in air samples taken at the same site and the department assured that it did not expect drinking water in the state to become contaminated.
“The drinking water supply in Massachusetts is unaffected by this short-term, slight elevation in radiation. However, we will carefully monitor the drinking water as we exercise an abundance of caution,” DPH Commissioner John Auerbach said.
The EPA will also collect additional samples from several bodies of water across Massachusetts Sunday for radioiodine testing.
Comparable traces of radioactive material have been found in rainwater samples in other US states — including California, Pennsylvania and Washington — and are thought to be a result of radiation leaking from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, crippled by a massive tsunami on March 11.
Federal officials had indicated that such findings were likely to occur at multiple locations across the US, with some variation due to weather patterns, in the wake of Japan’s crisis.