Radioactive killer 'at liberty'

Although in everyday life it is less known, natural radon gas is located everywhere around us in the living space, the second is the biggest cause of lung cancer. After smoking, the World Health Organization was named by him. For the same reasons, and due to the latest scientific knowledge about the growing presence and harmfulness of this natural killer, in 2013 the European Union also prescribed a special Radon directive that came into force at the beginning of February this year, and an additional check was ordered from Brussels to all member states.

E, it is this latest move by the EU's Directorate-General for Energy, which together with the European Atomic Energy Agency - EURATOM, is in charge of radiation and nuclear safety, in some of the younger members of the EU, has caused unexpected public upset, because, thanks to journalists, official data on concentrations of radon in the environment in these countries were reported to the public.

Although all EU Member States (and those that have the ambition to one day be) have professional state authorities for radiological and nuclear safety, some of them do not yet have mandatory Radon Action Plans. For example, only in mid-February, Croatia received a Working Group to develop a national action plan for monitoring this radioactive natural killer, which should be approved by the end of the year. A working group was established with the State Institute for Radiological and Nuclear Safety, which, like most of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, roots its roots from the 1980s and the then federal legislation in this field. However, all measurements of the presence of radon in the air have been up to these days in Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and all countries of transition, was mainly the subject of scientific research and national statistics. Information on its concentration in the environment was intended exclusively for national governments and parliaments, and for the needs of relevant international bodies, such as the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the EU.

Children are the most vulnerable

The upset of the Croatian public these days has sparked media reports of illicit radon doses in several locations in this country, and in some buildings in Istria County, including a large number of primary schools and kindergartens, the concentration of this radioactive gas was four times higher than the maximum allowed - 1200 becerella per cubic meter of air instead of the maximum allowed 300 units.

An additional fear in some Istrian municipalities and panic caused official interpretations of physicists and other experts in the field that radon originates by itself, the natural process of radioactive decay of radio, to spread from the country continuously and to it in smaller or larger, allowed or unauthorized dosages, every day in every living space - in the ground, in the air and in the water, and hidden in all enclosed areas where, due to increased concentration and irregularity, the most dangerous for human health. All living beings, say the profession, from birth to death exposed to the action of ionizing radiation in which work plays a major role. This radioactive gas is allegedly the largest natural source of radiation of living beings and the environment, because it makes up more than half the annual radiation dose that we receive from all other radionuclides together.

Radon is, in fact, the product of the geological structure of our planet, and there is nothing to change here. We can not escape the nature of the nature of nature, all grow up, and all layers of social hierarchy are in the mercy of the mother of nature. And the power that seems to be least aware of its secularity. But can one still do more for a man? Can the health of the nation be more important than statistics or scientific experiments?

Lessons from the Croatian case

An example of neighboring Croatia is more than instructive. The State Bureau for Radiological and Nuclear Safety in its current capacity and competencies was established by the 2013 Radiological and Nuclear Safety Act, therefore, only in the year in which Croatia was admitted to the EU. Only two years later, in some areas in Croatia, elevated radon concentrations in the air and water were determined, but such findings were not available to the public due to which the Radiological and Nuclear Safety Act and the State Bureau itself exist, but are stored in official trays, Part of the data was published on the official web site of the Bureau, and part of it was compounded in the annual reports on radiological and nuclear safety. And so, this renowned State Bureau completed its social mission !?

Moreover, from the office of the director of this Institute, these days it has been clarified that they "do not have a legal obligation to inform anyone about their findings as" a state institution ". "We have to publish the results of radon radioactive gas measurements only on the radon map on our portal, and where it is shown that the values of harmful gas are higher than the allowed ones, we will make a special Action Plan for risk management. Radon plan in Croatia should be completed by the end of the year, and for the increased values of radon, we will only establish certain recommendations, "said the director of this institute, Sasa Medakovic, knowingly or unconsciously confirming that the State Institute for Radiological and Nuclear Safety in this country, as well as most other transition countries, exists because of itself, due to government, state, and annual reports.

What is the situation in BiH?

Like the other successors of the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina had a solid basis for organizing quality mechanisms for monitoring ionizing radiation on its territory from the acquisition of independence. However, it was only in October 2007 that, in Brussels, was highly rated, the Law on Radiation and Nuclear Safety, and shortly thereafter the state regulatory body for this area. The National Regulatory Agency for Radiation and Nuclear Safety is an independent expert body within the competence of the Council of Ministers.

The Law on Radiation and Nuclear Safety in Bosnia and Herzegovina establishes a "system of control over sources of ionizing radiation, protection of people, present and future generations, as well as exposure environment (exposure ionizing radiation process) or potential exposure to ionizing radiation". The aim of this Law is to "ensure the protection of ionizing radiation - Radiation and nuclear safety of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina as follows: a) Establish and implement a system that enables the development and use of ionizing radiation sources in accordance with the requirements for the protection of human health and safety b) Establish and maintain a regulatory program for ionizing radiation sources, thereby ensuring compatibility with international standards for radiation source safety and protection against ionizing radiation;

The state regulatory / regulatory agency for radiation and nuclear safety, although due to budget constraints, is only half staffed, has in the meantime grown into a respectable expert body that, with its own activities, annual work plans and initiatives, has been able to incorporate within a short time all relevant international organizations and working bodies in charge of controlling nuclear activities, and in radiation and nuclear safety bodies. However, in our country, as in most other countries of the transition, the form has remained more important than the essence.

The essence is 'eating' the form

According to this disastrously bureaucratic habit, the annual reports on the state of nuclear and radiation safety in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Ministers have not been submitted since 2013, and information on doses of ionizing radiation in everyday living has not yet become part of the public discourse. Why? Because no one from Brussels has ordered-

Such findings remain in the drawers of the Council of Ministers, in parliamentary benches, annual reports that have so far been beyond the reach of the broadest public and possibly in narrow scientific-professional circles. The media have not dealt with this topic so far.

Despite all the previous annual reports on the work of the state agency DARNS, for the purposes of this text, I could not find any information about whether this state body has ever engaged in sampling radioactive radon and, possibly, mapping the area with elevated or unauthorized doses of this dangerous natural gas. Bearing in mind, however, that in Bosnia and today's tooth of time, dozens of metal and concrete scaffolds of former industrial plants are located, such locations could potentially be a source of high radiation. Independent experts also warn that the geological structure of certain areas of our country is suitable for radon evaporation (rocky soil). Because of this, experts say at the EU headquarters, it's high time to get from the mold to the core:

No place to panic

Preparing for this text and writing to the DARNS Authorities in Sarajevo with a request to provide me with information on "whether and when any measurements of the concentration of radioactive natural gas radon in the air in Bosnia and Herzegovina were carried out" and " where it is possible to find a Report on this for 2017 ". I reminded that the most recent report was adopted by the Council of Ministers one month ago on 26 April and that I did not find such a report on the Council of Ministers website nor in the annual reports of the State Regulatory Agency DARNS. Answer I did not get. But bearing in mind that information in the "global village" can not conceal long, to believe that the public in Bosnia and Herzegovina as these days in Croatia will soon find out whether and how much citizens are irradiated from nature,

According to the European Commission Directive, radon concentrations are considered to be less than 300 becquerels per cubic meter of air in the living space or in facilities that are medically acceptable, that is, with such radiation doses, the radon risk of cancer is negligible. Anxiety or panic, therefore, should not be until it is proved that the danger to the collective health of people is possible.

Although this radioactive gas and its environmental risk have been scientifically known since 1900, the exact consequences of radon radiation have not been widely publicized in many EU member states until recently. Among the countries that are the most conscious of the risk of this radioactive gas for the health of the nation are the Scandinavian countries, Ireland, Germany and the Czech Republic. Of the countries in the region, each of them has state resources for radiation and nuclear safety, most of them have Action Plans and good formal relations with international institutions. What is lacking is awareness of who such mechanisms serve.

Croatia, for example, although a member of the EU has not considered the Radon Action Plan since the beginning of July 2013 until the February Radon directive came into force in February. This directive requires each member to adopt an annual action plan and take all other measures to protect against excessive radiation of people and nature by the radiative energies of this subtle earthly killer.

What would be the question, whether with carcinogenic radon in Croatia, and if people and children would be poisoned by this dangerous gas in Istria, that there was no European Directive on the control of the presence of radon in homes, schools and kindergartens, in the living environment? Why exactly in all areas of life and work in transition countries, measures and standards must they establish authorities from outside? Is it possible that even after the age of four years of the new Balkan states, the state itself is the purpose and goal, and the citizen is only a polling machine, statistical data or means for the state political elite to manipulate national passions? Why are the states so many irrelevant citizens? Even so irrelevant that they are more important and poorly crafted political trillers than the health of the nation!

• 28 May, 2018
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