No excessive environmental radioactivity found in Romania

Romania's National Network for Environmental Radioactivity Monitoring (RNSRM) has not detected excessive environmental radioactivity in Romania, as the recorded values do not pose a risk to the population, the National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPM) said on Friday, Agerpres reports.

"Given the current international situation, namely the war in Ukraine, as far as radioactivity is concerned, there were no exceedances of the warning limits for environmental radioactivity by the National Network for Environmental Radioactivity Monitoring (RNSRM). So far, it is in the multi-annual trend of variation for the current month and does not present a risk for the environment or the population," ANPM shows.

According to ANPM, proactive measures have been taken to intensify the monitoring of environmental radioactivity through gamma spectroscopy, with the values thus measured being normal for this period. Artificial radionuclides in the environment have not been detected.

RNSRM has implemented several permanent verification and warning/alarm measures regarding the occurrence of any increase in radioactivity in the monitored environmental samples: the national real-time warning / alarm system for determining the absorbed dose rates (hourly analyses, performed by automatic monitoring stations), where data are permanently posted on the ANPM website (http://www.anpm.ro/debit-doza-gama) and local EPAs; laboratory analyses of various environmental factors, such as atmospheric aerosols, atmospheric deposition, and surface water: global analyses performed daily, and weekly and monthly gamma spectrometry analyses.

RNSRM operates 37 environmental radioactivity monitoring stations under the authority of the county environmental protection agencies, as well as 86 automatic stations to measure absorbed dose rates.

The data from the automatic stations are available online on the ANPM website, and the EURDEP platform (European Radiolocical Data Exchange Platform).

Ukraine's nuclear agency said it was recording increased radiation levels from the site of the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which has been captured by Russian forces, according to the Reuters news agency.

Ukraine's Ekoentr Center experts say that the increase in gamma radiation at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exclusion zone is the result of the topsoil being spread around on pressure from a large number of heavy military equipment, Ukraine's Ukrinform national news agency quotes the Ukrainian State Inspectorate for Nuclear Regulation as saying in a Facebook post.