Detection of Iodine-131 in the Ambient Air in Europe during January 2017: It is necessary to determine the origin of this phenomenon. Clarification of Criirad about the releases of a nuclear reactor in Norway

In a press release dated 13 February 2017, the French Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute (IRSN) indicated that 'iodine-131, a radionuclide of artificial origins, was detected in January 2017 in trace amounts in the air at surface-level in Europe'. Iodine-131 was detected between 9 and 16 January in Norway, Finland, and Poland; between 17 and 23 January in the Czech Republic; between 16 and 30 January in Germany; between 18 and 26 January in France; and between 17 and 24 January in Spain. Iodine-131 is a relatively short-lived (with a half-life of 8 days) artificial radionuclide that emits beta and gamma rays. The detected levels of this isotope are extremely low: the highest levels of iodine-131 (in aerosol form) were found in Poland, where levels were registered at 5.92 μBq/m³ (micro-becquerel per cubic meter) following a sampling that took place between 9 and 16 January 2017. In France, the highest levels reported by IRSN were 0.31 μBq/m³ (from a sampling carried out between 18 and 25 January 2017 in Puy-de-Dome). Social networks spread the information that Norway has contaminated all of Europe with radioactive iodine 131 for several weeks. This was a confusion between two events: an incident detected on a nuclear reactor in Norway in October 2016 and the detection of Iodine-131 at low levels in the ambient air of several European countries in January 2017. Both events are not correlated as no reactor Incident or Accident took place in Norway or in nearby countries in January 2017