Radiation Monitoring Project

Media Advisory, NEIS, News, Press Release, Radiation Monitoring Project

PRESS RELEASE: “PROTECT BETTER” CAMPAIGN DEMANDS BETTER RADIATION PROTECTION FOR AMERICANS AS U.S. GOVERNMENT MOVES TO LOOSEN NUCLEAR EXPOSURE REGULATION AND AS NEW REACTORS START UP

PRESS RELEASE: for immediate use

As a courtesy to our colleagues, we provide the attached press release announcing the formation of a new national Campaign organized to counter the Trump Administration’s weakening of radiation standards.

For the past 14 months the Trump Administration has issued numerous “Executive Orders” designed to fast-track new nuclear power building and licensing. Unfortunately for the Nation, this comes at the cost of reduced protection from radioactive contamination, and potential safety and security degradation. This Campaign has galvanized to confront and reverse these irresponsible policies.

Given the facts that Illinois has both the most operating nuclear power reactors (11) and the largest quantity of “orphaned” high-level radioactive waste (>11,000 tons) of any state, the impacts of the Administration’s environmental carelessness are probabilistically more likely to be felt here than elsewhere. Coupled with the recent 2025 repeal of Illinois nuclear construction moratorium, more nuclear reactors in Illinois will only increase the potential for these hazards.

By way of disclosure, NEIS is a co-founding member of this Campaign.

Please go directly to the contacts listed for more information.

Source: Protect Better campaign https://www.protectbetter.org/

NEWS RELEASE

For immediate release

Contact: Stephen Kent, skent@kentcom.com, 914-589-5988

“PROTECT BETTER” CAMPAIGN DEMANDS BETTER RADIATION PROTECTION FOR AMERICANS AS U.S. GOVERNMENT MOVES TO LOOSEN NUCLEAR EXPOSURE REGULATION AND AS NEW REACTORS START UP

[Washington, DC – July 6] The Coalition to Stop Radioactive Pollution, comprised of health and environmental advocacy groups and nuclear watchdog groups, today announced the launch of the Protect Better campaign to demand better protection from ionizing radiation for all Americans.

The campaign launch comes at a time when radiation exposure risks to workers and the public, which are already significant, are about to rise as the U.S. government overhauls regulation to enable rapid nuclear expansion. Experts connected with Protect Better point out that higher radiation exposures will damage public health and raise incidence of cancer and other diseases.

A recent Harvard study found elevated cancer mortality rates among Americans within 125 miles of existing nuclear plants. New reactors now under development use more highly enriched uranium and generate more radioactive waste than existing ones. Running old reactors longer and restarting decommissioned ones increase risk of radiological releases.

In recent weeks, startups were racing to power up new small modular reactors (SMRs) by the Trump administration’s July 4 deadline. Last week, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) published a proposed new rule loosening regulations on radiation exposure to workers and the public. The SMR startups and new rules are pursuant to 2025 Trump administration executive orders calling for “wholesale revision” of the NRC and urging weaker radiation standards to facilitate expansion of the nuclear power and weapons industries, including nuclear-powered data centers.

Other departmental orders, which the Trump administration wrote in secret but shared with nuclear licensees, loosen radiation protections for groundwater and the environment, raise the threshold for nuclear worker radiation exposure before an official investigation gets triggered, and make other key changes designed to accelerate deployment of new, experimental reactor designs.

Amid these developments, the Protect Better campaign is organizing to raise awareness of growing radioactive dangers, watchdog lax federal regulators and nuclear industries, and encourage citizens to take action to safeguard public health and the environment, including by submitting demands for better radiation protections during open public comment periods on new NRC rules.

“Last year a coalition of groups wrote to the NRC and other agency heads expressing our concerns about the executive orders fast-tracking nuclear projects and rolling back regulation, citing research that documents harms from radiation exposure,” said Dr. Brian Campbell, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “The new proposed NRC rule ignores those concerns. Among other things, it throws out the established scientific basis for setting radiation dose limits and allows nuclear owners to apply to raise limits for exposures they cause. We are still evaluating the proposed NRC rule and will be submitting detailed comments on it, but we will fight these rollbacks and demand protective standards based on the best science. The Coalition to Stop Radioactive Pollution is urging public interest groups and concerned citizens to do likewise.”

“An expanding nuclear industry coupled with deteriorating regulation is a recipe for more radioactive pollution in the environment and worse health impacts,” said Dr. Amanda Nichols, Nuclear Radiation Policy Expert at Generational Radiation Impact Project. “After years of research, the NRC finally acknowledged in 2021 that even a single radioactive particle may cause cancer. But the impacts go well beyond cancer: immune dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, pregnancy impacts, and other health effects have all been linked to radiation exposure, and they affect some populations more than others. We know that girls and women are disproportionately harmed from exposure, and that compounding exposures exacerbate the risks of harm. Research shows that internal exposures, which come from ingesting contaminated food, water, or air, are orders of magnitude more harmful than we were previously told. Now, with more radiation in the environment, the impacts to the general public, and especially to girls and women, could be catastrophic.”

“The nuclear power and weapons industry has steadily poisoned us for over 80 years with radioactivity that lasts eons,” said Mary Beth Brangan, director of the Ecological Options Network (EON). “As more nuclear facilities are built across the United States under weakened oversight, it will allow radioactive contamination to rise across the country. Instead of arbitrarily raising dose limits to boost the nuclear industry, the Protect Better campaign demands stricter, science-based, protective standards to better protect the public and the environment.”

Groups supporting the Protect Better campaign include Physicians for Social Responsibility, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Parents Against Santa Susana Field Laboratory, Nuclear Energy Information Service, Beyond Nuclear, the Samuel Lawrence Foundation, the Ecological Options Network, Committee to Bridge the Gap, Generational Radiation Impact Project, and the Oregon Conservancy Foundation.

NOTE TO EDITORS AND PRODUCERS: Sources quoted in this release and other experts and advocates connected with the Protect Better campaign are available for comment and interviews. For more information, please contact Stephen Kent, skent@kentcom.com, 914-589-5988

July 7, 2026/by NEIS

NEIS, News, Radiation Monitoring Project

RADIATION MONITORING PROJECT HOLDS FIRST TRAINING

NEIS hosted the first training session of the newly formed Radiation Monitoring Project (RMP) in Chicago on October 30^th. Nuclear researcher Lucas Hixson of Enformable Environmental Services of Michigan conducted an intensive training for 10 eager trainees on the topics of radiation and the field use of monitors.

The Chicago event was the first of what will be a series of trainings around the country sponsored by the RMP. The next trainings are tentatively slated to be held in Chicago sometime in January; and in Albuquerque in March, 2016.

Hixson led participants through an intense classroom training on radiation basics lasting nearly five hours. This was followed for the next three hours by hands-on training using the monitors provided by the Project to take readings on selected radioactive samples Hixson provided. An edited video of the training will soon be available on the RMP webpage hosted on the website of Diné No Nukes of Albuquerque, NM.

The purpose of the RMP is to professionally train a cadre of frontline community members and activists who either live in or near nuclear/radiation-related facilities; or who are affected by some radiation contamination in the use of industry-grade radiation monitors. The Project intends to compile and archive data; and act as a validity check to industry and government information concerning contamination and spills of radioactive materials. Having the participants professionally trained and equipped with industry-standard monitors enhances the validity of their findings.

The Project is a joint venture of Diné No Nukes of Albuquerque, NM; Sloths against Nuclear State of Brooklyn, NY; and NEIS of Chicago Illinois. These groups raised close to $17,000 this year to purchase 15 hand-held devices. Fundraising continues (see below) and will go to cover the costs of future trainings, and purchase additional radiation monitors.

The RMP intends to offer the use of the monitors free of charge to individuals and groups living in or near communities threatened by some form of radiation contamination. Candidates will have to submit a formal application (see below) to be considered for receiving a monitor; and will have to agree to participate in a formal training conducted by RMP. Accepted applicants will also be urged to submit their data to RMP for archiving.

While other radiation monitoring projects have been in operation for years, it seems that the RMP model is the first of its kind in the U.S. While the fundamental purpose of the Project is to protect people and communities from radiation hazards, its overarching goal is to train a constantly growing cadre of professionally trained people whose information and data cannot be disputed or dismissed as irrelevant.

After Fukushima it became abundantly clear that citizens cannot count on the information coming from government agencies and the nuclear industry as being valid and unbiased, if not outright falsified. Nor can they count on the government to do monitoring when and where it counts. The RMP intends to create a corps of citizen experts whose data and training will serve as a reality check on the usual “the public was never in any danger” pronouncements of groups like the NRC and EPA.

Individuals and organizations interested in being considered for participation in the RMP can submit an application form by e-mail.

Download the RMP Application

The Project continues to accept donations.

Donors willing to support the RMP can send donations in one of several ways:

Our GoFundMe site is still active:

Send the link along on Twitter and Facebook, with a little blurb about your experience at the Training. Up to 7% of your donation will go to GoFundMe fees. So….

Donors wishing to make TAX DEDUCTIBLE contributions can do so through the NEIS website at:

Donate to NEIS

and selecting the Radiation Monitoring Project from the “special purpose” field.

NEIS will also accept checks by mail made out to NEIS, and marked “RadMonitoring Project” in the memo field.

The full title of the RMP is, “The Radiation Monitoring Project: Protecting Our Communities. Watching the Watchers.” You are on notice NRC; we WILL be watching from now on.

November 6, 2015/by nuclear energy

NEIS, Press Release, Radiation Monitoring Project

GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATIONS RECEIVE $8,000.00 IN ANONYMOUS DONATION FOR “RADIATION MONITORING PROJECT”

Chicago, IL.—The “Radiation Monitoring Project”, a national initiative to establish monitoring of radioactivity in communities contaminated by the nuclear fuel chain, received over half its $15,000 fundraising goal in a single anonymous donation earlier this week.

The Radiation Monitoring Project is a collaboration among three organizations: Diné No Nukes (DNN) of the Southwest region, Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) located in Chicago, Illinois and Sloths Against Nuclear State (SANS) based in Brooklyn, NY. These organizations represent communities across America affected by various stages of the nuclear fuel chain—such as uranium mining and milling, waste transport and storage, and nuclear reactors.

“This gift was totally unexpected,” notes Dave Kraft, director of NEIS. “It makes it very likely that we will not only reach our initial targets, but may enable us to purchase even more radiation monitors for distribution than initially planned. Whoever the donors are, we thank you, and so do the communities your gift will be protecting,” says a grateful Kraft.

Due to the lack of public monitoring of radioactivity and access to real-time data regarding radioactive contamination, the three organizations are working together to establish mechanisms to monitor radioactivity and the means to access the information online.

“As long as the American public is not aware of the radioactive pollution in their area, the more they are susceptible to adverse health effects,” states Charmaine Whiteface from Defenders of the Black Hills, an organization dealing with radioactive contamination on Lakota and Cheyenne lands.

Nationally, many communities are in dire need of this type of monitoring to protect human populations, but lack the necessary resources or technology to do much about it. Through this project, these organizations are not only addressing the need for monitoring to protect the public health and safety, but they are also providing culturally appropriate education and support for communities to protect themselves.

This first stage of the project is to raise funds to secure at least 10 radiation detectors (also known as Geiger Counters) as well as to host multiple trainings in different regions to use said devices. The group is using the platform Go Fund Me and receiving tax-deductible donations via NEIS, which received the donation this week from an anonymous donor.

In response to Fukushima, the 2013 WIPP plutonium leak in New Mexico, and in the wake of the recent May 2015 radiation leak at Indian Point nuclear reactor (less than 60 miles north of New York City), residents in urban areas are becoming alarmed to the real dangers of nuclear energy production. Just like the disasters at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, residents of these areas will be permanently impacted by the radioactivity, health effects, economic upheaval, relocation, and the many costs never paid for by the nuclear industry itself.

Unknowingly, a huge percentage of Americans in the Western United States live everyday near radioactive waste sites contaminated from past mining. Beginning in the 1870s, uranium was discovered in Colorado and mined during the 19th century in both Colorado and Texas. The most contaminated sites were created during the Manhattan-Project or Atomic Energy Commission mining-era, largely on indigenous lands and within sources of drinking water for many indigenous peoples. In places like Churchrock, New Mexico—site of the world’s largest uranium tailings spill in 1979—both ground and surface water were contaminated. Today, the majority of these past mining areas remain un-remediated. Residents in Churchrock are still living with contamination from past mining and the 1979 spill. Such rural locations are not in the news and, in the past, did not receive the media attention that was created around Three Mile Island or Fukushima,

Arnie Gundersen of Fairwinds Energy Education – an internationally recognized nuclear issues expert, especially on the Fukushima nuclear disaster — says in support of the project: “Radiation exposure to Native Americans is one of the great untold stories of the nuclear era. These detectors will help the truth to be told.”

This project ties together the entire nuclear fuel chain by addressing the similar needs of different communities working to protect themselves and future generations by identifying contaminated sites and preventing unnecessary exposures at these places.

The project and fundraiser commenced on the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster this year, April 26, 2015. The organizations plan to reach the goal of $15,000 by July 16, 2015 which is the anniversary of the Churchrock Spill as well as the first nuclear test explosion in 1945 at the Trinity Site in southern New Mexico.