Regulatory Limits
The legal limits for tritium in drinking water vary from country-to-country and from continent-to-continent. Some figures are given below.
- Canada: 7,000 becquerel per liter (Bq/L).
- United States: 740 Bq/L or 20,000 picocurie per liter (pCi/L) (Safe Drinking Water Act)
- World Health Organization: 10,000 Bq/L.
- European Union: "investigative" limit of 100 Bq/L.
The American limit is calculated to yield a dose of 4.0 millirems (or 40 microsieverts in SI units) per year. This is about 1.3% of the natural background radiation (roughly 3000 microsieverts).
Read more about this topic: Tritium
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“This teaching is not practical in the sense in which the New Testament is. It is not always sound sense in practice. The Brahman never proposes courageously to assault evil, but patiently to starve it out. His active faculties are paralyzed by the idea of caste, of impassable limits of destiny and the tyranny of time.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)