The results have outraged parents, whose children are to be moved to the building temporarily while the city renovates their current building.
By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
A building located next to an electrical transformer and slated to house 65 kindergarten children contains three times the amount of radiation the municipality said it did, reports Yediot Tel Aviv. Parents suspicious of the city's radiation test results brought in their own experts, who made the findings. The results have outraged parents, whose children are to be moved to the building temporarily while the city renovates their current building.
According to the report, parents were worried when they heard that the city was planning to move the 65 children from two adjoining kindergartens in Rehov Bavli in north Tel Aviv to a building in Rehov Yehuda Hamaccabi. They asked the city to carry out radiation tests on the large electrical transformer just outside the temporary building. The city found 1.7 milligauss - a measure of magnetic radiation - in the yard nearest the transformer, 0.8 milligauss in the center of the yard and 0.6 milligauss in the building itself.
But parents were suspicious and hired their own experts from a private company, who measured levels of 1.1 to 2.2 milligauss in the buildings and a massive 5.9 milligauss in the yard. The Ministry for Environmental Protection says no one should be exposed to more than 2 milligauss for 24 continuous hours, or more than 4 milligauss for eight continuous hours.
"The move to the temporary kindergarten is supposed to take place in the next few weeks and we are shocked that we have to have any discussions at all on how much radiation it is reasonable for our children's bodies to absorb … We will not agree to move our children to that kindergarten," one parent said, adding that the problem could be easily avoided if the city would instead move the children to a local community center. A municipal spokesman said the test results were being sent to the Ministry for Environmental Protection for further evaluation.