March 17, 2011

Growing concern by Americans over exposure from damaged nuclear plants in Japan has prompted officials to deploy more radiation monitors in the western United States and Pacific territories, federal environmental regulators say.

Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said they do not expect harmful radiation levels to reach anywhere in the U.S. from Japan.

"The agency decided out of an abundance of caution to send these deployable monitors in order to get some monitors on the ground closer to Japan," Jonathan Edwards, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's radiation protection division, said this week.

The additional monitors are being deployed in response to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, where emergency workers are attempting to cool overheated reactors damaged by last week's magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami.

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