Is it safe to cycle on radioactive roads?
 

While sipping my Latte, I read on the NPR website that Florida lawmakers are considering paving the roads through semi-tropical paradise with radioactive compounds.

Where I grew up (Chicago area), this was a tried and true method for disposing of body parts, so on one level, it seems like a great idea. But then I got to thinking that if I am not surrounded by a metal cage, but instead am on a road bike, I would likely be exposed to more radiation, not to mention the road dust that I would have to breathe.

Is this something that is, or should be, a safety concern?

(I didn't know whether to post this here or in P&R, but since the latter is a club that I am not a member of, and since there is nothing even remotely political in the motivation for anything happening in Florida these days, A&S is really the only choice available.)

If they glow at night it would make evening rides interesting.

I'm confident that our august body of legislators have only the best interests of the citizenry at heart in all their actions.

Depends on how radioactive they are. Get a Geiger counter and go around your home or anywhere else. Until you understand what level is threatening and what level isn't, all that clicking it does will have you scared.

However this in no way is to be taken that I agree or disagree with them doing this. Nor does it even indicate that I read the article... which I didn't.

Well, if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declares it safe, then ... Of course, soldiers were told "As little as one foot of earth will protect you against radiation, in a blast" (during the early 'battlefield' testing of the nukes), too.

Still, in an open-air environment such as a roadway, particularly given that the product is "regulated for the presence of radium-226," (to be below 'safe' levels), then it might well be a non-issue. After all, millions of people build with granite slabs and blocks. Can't say I'd like to be living and sleeping completely on such slabs, which have "trace" amounts of such elements, but this open-air roadway environment seems a much lower risk. Though, in time, human growth being what it is, even a relatively remote section of roadway might well have homes built right near it; so, "open air" might not be what it once was, at such a spot.

https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa...d-construction

What could happen? How bad could it be? After all, the EPA along with the legislators have all our best interests at heart. :twitchy:

PSA (and I'm not talking about your prostate): Rn ≠ Rn

Just wrap yourself in tin foil.

Living in Chicago...radioactive roads in Florida = Same-Same...either is likely to be the cause of death.

The problem, as I see it, is our dependence on the manufacturing of fertilizers, which this is a byproduct of, because Florida has the geology, along with two other states to produce 90% of the phosphate for agriculture. Florida is working with the EPA to evaluate if this is a safe use of phosphogypsum.

However, Regenerative Agriculture has proven that we don't need to constantly applying fertilizers to our crops when we work with nature. (This is totally different from Organic farming). If it's not used in the roads we still have the problem of storing this stuff and it's not just in Florida, it's around the world. One example from Spain

https://www.science.gov/topicpages/p...al+environment


However, we keep producing it, because of the money. This is just one byproduct from things we make and it's catching up with us.


This is just one guy that started doing Regenerative agriculture and has totally gotten off fertilizers, at the same time rebuilt his soil which prevent massive runoff during heavy rains. Too much other stuff I can go into, but would make this a very long post...

Assuming this isn't high level radioactive waste, it won't be a problem.

You are constantly exposed to radiation. If you breath in highly radioactive particles, you will die. So I am assuming this won't use high level waste.

But you've got all manner of radiation hitting the Earth 24/7... you are used to it.

Quaff some saw pallmetto b4 u ride...... :cheers:

my initial reaction, is, well a reaction. I'd not go there. Unless teeth & hair is nothing of importance to you, I guess have at it?

According to the article, the EPA has banned this material for road use. FL appears to be setting up a test case for some reason. The link to the EPA site in your post was to when the Trump administration briefly reversed the policy, and it was re-reversed when Biden took over.

As it has never been done before, you're going to have to work it out yourself.

Get about two thousand people to go riding every day.. Give half of them a route map that covers the roads made with the radioactive phosphogypsum, and the other half a route map that covers only non-radioactive 'control' roads. Report back with detailed health reports on the participants in five, ten, twenty, and fifty years.

1. Really depends on how old you are... there should only be long-term effects of muscle fibrosis and some neurological issues that show up in about 20-25 years. For a cyclist, you may prematurely lose the ability to raise your right pinky-toe (proximity to roadbed and inverse-square law) or perhaps show undue skin tanning below the sock-line, which is a potential violation of Rule #7 (ruling could be challenged, however, non-arm violations lacking precedent). If one is already past a certain age, issues become less impactful and may not limit activities of daily living.
2. It might be unwise to eat this road material, as opposed to regular asphalt. Just like chewing gum, asphalt stays in your stomach for 300 years. Everyone learned that in 2nd grade.
3. This is also a case of "relative risk." When riding, especially in Florida, one must recognize more immediate and likely threats. This includes pythons, alligators, oversized angry bikehater pickmeup trucks and the evasive but ever-present, Florida Man.

I think you'd really have to know the details to understand this. My guess is it's non-issue and they are not relying on people being in cars to be safe.

This sounds a bit like the old saying, "the solution to pollution, is dilution". There is, of course, some merit to that for things that occur naturally and the problem is only because we concentrated it in the first place. Which apparently is the case here.

I could very well imagine that the radioactive levels are a fraction of background radiation when this material is spread out on a road, and this is a non-issue. But I could also imagine this is just a way for an industry to try to socialize an expense. It certainly seems like something worth considering and not dismiss out of hand. But it should also be scrutinized closely. I would in no way trust ANYTHING the industry says about this.

I think they should first try using radioactive materials while repaving the streets in Disney.

In a few years, Mickey will be eating the tourists. :lol:

Lots more info is needed to discuss this intelligently.

Like just about everything else, radiation is much more about degree than a binary pass fail deal.

We're all exposed to radiation 24/7/365 with the biggest variable being where we live. So, the question is how much MORE are we actually talking about. Personally, I'd be much more concerned with road dust, but have no data on how much dust is actually created and where it goes.

Sadly, and not wanting to veer into politics, the USA is experiencing a giant failure of leadership, and loss of institutional credibility. Actual fact based discussion of things like this is virtually impossible, with people only believing facts or "alternate facts" according to their own credos.

Don't give them any ideas.

To emphasize what I said in post #8...The problem is our continuing manufacture of this byproduct, in addition to all the other toxic things we are continually producing. That's the real problem. We are destroying natural habitats and biodiversity with this crap and yet we continue to produce it every year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosph...0metric%20tons.

And this is just one of many toxic things we have to deal with and much of this hardly makes the news. This problem is catching up with us, but no one is paying attention. Just the other day I saw an article about California sending toxic waste to an out-of-state dump. This is happening all the time in all 50 states and most countries around the world. It will catch up to us and I'm not sure we can fix it at that point.

I agree that an intelligent conversation about the health issues raised here is probably beyond our knowledge and/or competence. However, this certainly has the appearance of being the result of some pretty heavy lobbying by the fertilizer industry to clear up their waste issue by spreading this material over large swathes of the state. I don't think this issue can be intelligently discussed without a deep analysis of the interest group politics involved and the level of competence of the FL legislature and its governor, and this is supposedly not a political forum, so maybe we should pass on the whole topic here. This is an issue that probably has next to nothing to do with cycling, I seriously doubt that the environmental dangers contemplated would be especially bad for cyclists.

This really is the wrong forum for this. P&R would be more appropriate.

Given what's in the article, I think the likelier issues arise when these roads will inevitably need to be dug up, repaired and/or replaced.

It's only political if we allow those in power to let us be fooled by the BS rhetoric. This is NOT a partisan issue, both sides are screwing this up. This isn't even an American problem, the whole world is creating a toxic mess. Money, not politics is what drives this problem of toxic pollution. Maybe we need a Money Corruption forum.

Any credible bicycle safety issues here? Belongs wherever environmental discussion/rants go, probably P&R or Foo.

Seriously, this is definitely not the forum for a big debate on the green revolution.

There aren't enough hard data in that article to be able to judge.

A less serious response- maybe it matters whether you also have a banana in your back pocket at the same time.