A false alarm could cause great damage as well as waste of resources. Please consider, however, that the problem may not be radiation detectors in the hands of citizens, but rather the lack of detectors. A citizen with a low-cost, high dose-rate instrument could instantly squelch a false alarm....

If there is a real alarm–a dirty bomb explosion or, far worse, a nuclear detonation, you will not be worrying about false alarms, but about people getting crushed to death in the street or dying from radiation poisoning. With my NukAlert, I could help people find the safest area of the building (say in the corridor on a middle floor of a high rise).

On Martha’s Vineyard, police officers carry NukAlerts on their belt; they form a negative monitoring net. They can identify the safe or “no panic” zone.

There aren’t enough police or firefighters to be everywhere. You need as many citizens helping you as possible....

Before you vote on an ordinance that would make radiation monitoring instruments rarer and more expensive, I hope you will do some research. Here are some questions that need answers:

How many instruments are there in the hands of city officials in the area that you represent? What dose range do they measure? Are they designed for interdiction, as to detect shielded radioactive materials, and thus extremely sensitive? If a dirty bomb, or far worse, a nuclear weapon exploded, would they be off scale, unable to determine the difference between an elevated but not immediately harmful level, and a level that would be rapidly lethal? How much training is required to use the instrument properly? What happened to the instruments your state had during the Cold War, which even Boy Scouts could properly use, which never gave a false alarm? What instruments are available today, from any source, at any cost? How many have a dose range appropriate for a post-nuclear environment?

I suggest an alternate proposal that will truly help to protect New Yorkers. Please consider these measures:

1. Equip police and firefighters with NukAlerts, or equivalent instrument if you can find one. You can follow the model already developed in Martha’s Vineyard.

2. Encourage citizens to acquire NukAlerts, equivalent instruments, or refurbished surplus Cold War civil defense meters, perhaps by offering a tax credit. Thank them; don’t threaten them! NukAlerts are simple to use and require no maintenance.

3. Because a sufficient inventory of instruments does not currently exist to adequately equip your city in time of crisis, and cannot be produced fast enough, prepare copies of self-help information to be distributed in time of crisis. The federal government funded the development of life-saving information, and tested the ability of citizens to follow the instructions in Nuclear War Survival Skills (NWSS), initially published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and now available free on the internet.

4. Give awards to schools, civic organizations, churches, and others who have their students and members make Kearny Fallout Meters, from the instructions in NWSS. This is actually the most reliable instrument available, in the sense that cannot give a falsely low reading. Well-made, it rivals the accuracy of expensive electronic instruments. Poorly made, it is still surprisingly good–and far better than ignorance and terror. If you carry the dimensions and calibration table on a card in your wallet, and you have practiced making one, you can make a KFM from materials available at a convenience store.