The resulting radioactive fallout swept eastward, blowin' on the wind. The radioactive strontium and cesium settled out onto the ground and, as time passed, migrated into the soil. A-bomb enthusiasts assumed, optimistically, that it had gone away. In 1989, Stewart A. Farber, who manages environmental monitoring for the Yankee Atomic Electric Company in Bolton, Massachusetts, wondered if radioactive strontium and cesium from bomb fallout had been taken up by tree roots. It was about 100 times more radioactive than any other environmental sample he had ever checked.
Many companies recycle their wood ash into fertilizer.
Farber says current regulations require wastes from a nuclear power plant to be disposed of as radioactive wastes if they contain one percent as much radioactivity as is found in wood ash from New England. Radioactivity is widely acknowledged to cause inheritable genetic changes, immune system damage, reproductive damage, developmental disorders, and cancer. It is also widely acknowledged that the only truly safe dose of radiation is zero. From the viewpoint of radioactive contamination alone, it makes sense to begin phasing out petroleum, uranium, and coal. Phase out or ban petroleum, uranium, chlorine and coal.