You get zapped by many sources, like granite, radon (especially if you have a well - don't take long showers!), the sun, cosmic rays (much more so if you are a frequent flyer), your smoke detectors, etc.
Your body is adapted to some levels and types of radiation. Unless you exceed the human body's natural defenses against ionizing radiation, your chances of getting cancer do not go up.
Even standing in your clean house, you are bombarded by dangerous gamma rays, which cause cancer fer sure, but you may not get cancer in your lifetime.
I concede that my statement:"If a microscopic piece of radioactive material gets into your body, you WILL get cancer -- may not happen for 10 or 20 years, but it will happen. " --- is an overgeneralization and in that sense an exaggeration.
But then again, the original post claiming it would take "truckloads" of contaminant to poison a reservoir is, at least, as 'inaccurate'.
The basic idea is that there are radioactive materials that are granular enough and potent enough so that dispersal into a reservoir would compel you to NOT drink from it BECAUSE "you do not want radioactive material to be lodged in your body where its emmissions are damaging enough to your DNA to significantly increase the likelyhood of cancer"
I'll grant you your technical semantic objections to my assertions, to the extent that my non-factuality comforts you as you drink water that has been contaminated by radioactive materials.
The reason I responded to the post about 'needing truckloads of contaminant' is because I was very surprised to hear this was the governments stance -- I felt it was a misdirection.
In the interests of full disclosure -- I am not a scientist. I do not even hold a degree of any sort. In fact, I am a high school dropout who has completed only 3/4 of a year of high school.
But here is the irony, you can 'take' the word of the government -- the government who told you the environment was 'safe' in NYC after two asbestos and silica laden towers had collapsed dusting the city with these materials -- while, on the other hand, this government will FINE YOU for having a sandpile on a construction site that is not covered by a tarp and labeled as HAZARDOUS MATERIAL...
OR--
You can read what some anonymous drop-out nobody has written on the net and at least apply enough common sense to it to give one pause and reconsideration, illuminating arguments and questions hopefully disconcerting enough to cause a person to seek a second opinion other than USGOV.
So yea, Im an ignorant nobody, I made the assumption that, having scored in the top 3 percent in the nation on the American College (entry) Test in math and science, and having an IQ of 140, it was reasonable for me to put forth a few general axiomatic statements about science as I understood it in the context of the question at hand.
They were obviously, on their very face, not meant to be exacting, definative, absolute or precise. I think that a reasonable person could see that by their very baldness. I was not issuing them as an adamant claim on scientific truth -- their very style and overgeneralization SHOULD HAVE deflected such interpretation.
The intent is communication of an idea, and when people fall into the 'nit-pick legaleze debate-every-assertion to the nth degree trap' -- they are choosing to gaze into their navels and contemptate the meaning of 'is' instead of acknowleging and lending proper weight and intent to the communication and implications in the real world itself.
So, "Yadda, yadda" right back at-cha. =)
You are now free to continue to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, and ramble on about how much stronger steel is than ice.