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Scientists
study kelp radiation levels
The sampling is to begin in mid-February and end in late winter.
“I don’t believe there is any health hazard to the public or the environment,” Edwards said. “I’m still eating fish and going in the ocean.”
That's raising concerns among some Americans, including the residents of the San Francisco Bay Area city of Fairfax, which passed a resolution on Dec. 6 calling for more testing of coastal seafood.
At the same time, oceanographers and radiological scientists say such concerns are unwarranted, given existing levels of radiation in the ocean.
The runoff from the Japanese plant will mingle with radiation released by other atomic stations such as Diablo Canyon in California. Under normal operations, Diablo Canyon discharges more radiation into the sea, albeit of a less dangerous isotope, than the Fukushima station, which suffered the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
"There's a point to be made that we live in a radioactive world and the ocean just has radioactive isotopes in it," said Ken Buesseler, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who forecasts the Fukushima plume will arrive in the U.S. early this year. "People have a limited knowledge of radioactivity."
Leaking Groundwater
At Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Dai-Ichi station, where three reactors melted down after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, about 300 metric tons of contaminated groundwater seep into the ocean each day, according to Japan's government.
Between May 2011 and August 2013, as many as 20 trillion becquerels of cesium-137, 10 trillion becquerels of strontium-90 and 40 trillion becquerels of tritium entered the ocean via groundwater, according to Tokyo Electric.
Cesium isotopes, which emit flesh-penetrating gamma rays, are among the most dangerous radionuclides emitted by the plant, said Colin Hill, an associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine.
Strontium-90, which mimics calcium, increases the exposure risk for humans by remaining in the bones of fish for extended periods. While tritium is less radiologically intense than cesium and passes through fish faster than strontium, it can also contaminate sea creatures that encounter the isotope in high levels, Hill said.
Not Happy
Water exposed to radiation from the Fukushima plant would reach the U.S. at levels at least 100 times lower than the U.S.'s drinking water threshold, Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Allison Macfarlane said at a Dec. 6 briefing in Tokyo.
The assurances haven't eased concerns for some. "I'm terrified," Doreen Jean Dempski, a children's book author, said by phone from her home more than 5,000 miles across the Pacific from Fukushima in Carpinteria, California. "My boyfriend is a surfer and he spends hours a day in the water."
Sharing Dempski's worries are the Fairfax city council, which passed the coastal testing resolution, and more than 127,000 signatories to an online petition calling for a United Nations' takeover of part of the Fukushima cleanup. South Korea has already banned imports of fish from Japan's northern Pacific coast.
Part of the issue is general concern about radiation, and the startling amounts that are released into the environment by the 435 nuclear power plants operating worldwide as of Jan. 3. Measurements that puzzle the public -- becquerels, rems, curies and sieverts -- don't aid transparency. And, worse, scientists disagree on the health risks from low-dose radiation exposure.
Risk Expectations
A report on the Fukushima disaster by the World Health Organization in February last year estimated increased cancer risk for those in the most contaminated areas around the plant, but not elsewhere in Japan. However, the report also notes that better understanding of the effects of low-dose radiation may alter risk expectations from the Fukushima accident.
Less than 100 miles up the coast from Dempski's home, Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s Diablo Canyon plant in San Luis Obispo discharged 323 million liters of water into the Pacific in 2012, or about 870 tons a day, according to data from the company on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's website. That's equivalent to 130 Olympic swimming pools and more than twice the daily amount leaking from Fukushima.
Inadvertent Contact
That water contained 3,670 curies of tritium, or 136 trillion becquerels, according to the company, almost three-and- a-half times the amount released from the Fukushima plant into the ocean in the period starting May 2011. The plant also discharged cesium-137 and strontium-90, though at lower levels than Fukushima.
Diablo Canyon's discharges are regulated by the NRC and the plant complies with its licensing requirements, PG&E spokesman Blair Jones said in an e-mail. Total liquid discharges from Diablo Canyon in 2012 were 0.0165 percent of what the NRC allows, Jones said.
The radioactivity in plant wastewater comes from inadvertent contact between the isotopes and cooling water pumped through nuclear plants.
"Tritium is produced when a reactor is operating," Jones said. "Fukushima is not operating so naturally the tritium levels are lower when compared to Diablo Canyon."
Rick Castello, a San Luis Obispo-based project manager for a technology company, said by phone that he was unaware of the discharges from the nearby nuclear plant. He also harbors concerns about the approaching radiation from Fukushima.
"It's not like I think official sources would be intentionally hiding information from the people," he said by phone. "But sometimes we just don't know."
Studies
of the canopies of kelp off the coast of California were spurred
after may traces of radiation from the Fukashima nuclear plant were
discovered, according to scientists.
4
February, 2013.
SAN
DIEGO –
Scientists
said trace amounts of cesium radiation has been identified in the
kelp beds linking the nuclear waste to devastating earthquake and
tsunami in March 2011.
“We
are more connected then we ever thought possible,” said Dr. Mathew
Edwards a professor at San Diego State University.
Fifty
scientists from South, Central, and North America are set to test
kelp forests along coastlines of the Pacific Ocean. The study
will rely on volunteers from 20 academic and government institutions
and will test 33 sites in California, including Long Beach, Malibu
and Palos Verdes; two sites in Baja California and one in Washington
state.
The sampling is to begin in mid-February and end in late winter.
“I don’t believe there is any health hazard to the public or the environment,” Edwards said. “I’m still eating fish and going in the ocean.”
Fukushima-US radiation runoff will merge on West Coast
Seaborne radiation from Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant will wash up on the West Coast of the U.S. this year.
3
February, 2014
That's raising concerns among some Americans, including the residents of the San Francisco Bay Area city of Fairfax, which passed a resolution on Dec. 6 calling for more testing of coastal seafood.
At the same time, oceanographers and radiological scientists say such concerns are unwarranted, given existing levels of radiation in the ocean.
The runoff from the Japanese plant will mingle with radiation released by other atomic stations such as Diablo Canyon in California. Under normal operations, Diablo Canyon discharges more radiation into the sea, albeit of a less dangerous isotope, than the Fukushima station, which suffered the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
"There's a point to be made that we live in a radioactive world and the ocean just has radioactive isotopes in it," said Ken Buesseler, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who forecasts the Fukushima plume will arrive in the U.S. early this year. "People have a limited knowledge of radioactivity."
Leaking Groundwater
At Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Dai-Ichi station, where three reactors melted down after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, about 300 metric tons of contaminated groundwater seep into the ocean each day, according to Japan's government.
Between May 2011 and August 2013, as many as 20 trillion becquerels of cesium-137, 10 trillion becquerels of strontium-90 and 40 trillion becquerels of tritium entered the ocean via groundwater, according to Tokyo Electric.
Cesium isotopes, which emit flesh-penetrating gamma rays, are among the most dangerous radionuclides emitted by the plant, said Colin Hill, an associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine.
Strontium-90, which mimics calcium, increases the exposure risk for humans by remaining in the bones of fish for extended periods. While tritium is less radiologically intense than cesium and passes through fish faster than strontium, it can also contaminate sea creatures that encounter the isotope in high levels, Hill said.
Not Happy
Water exposed to radiation from the Fukushima plant would reach the U.S. at levels at least 100 times lower than the U.S.'s drinking water threshold, Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Allison Macfarlane said at a Dec. 6 briefing in Tokyo.
The assurances haven't eased concerns for some. "I'm terrified," Doreen Jean Dempski, a children's book author, said by phone from her home more than 5,000 miles across the Pacific from Fukushima in Carpinteria, California. "My boyfriend is a surfer and he spends hours a day in the water."
Sharing Dempski's worries are the Fairfax city council, which passed the coastal testing resolution, and more than 127,000 signatories to an online petition calling for a United Nations' takeover of part of the Fukushima cleanup. South Korea has already banned imports of fish from Japan's northern Pacific coast.
Part of the issue is general concern about radiation, and the startling amounts that are released into the environment by the 435 nuclear power plants operating worldwide as of Jan. 3. Measurements that puzzle the public -- becquerels, rems, curies and sieverts -- don't aid transparency. And, worse, scientists disagree on the health risks from low-dose radiation exposure.
Risk Expectations
A report on the Fukushima disaster by the World Health Organization in February last year estimated increased cancer risk for those in the most contaminated areas around the plant, but not elsewhere in Japan. However, the report also notes that better understanding of the effects of low-dose radiation may alter risk expectations from the Fukushima accident.
Less than 100 miles up the coast from Dempski's home, Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s Diablo Canyon plant in San Luis Obispo discharged 323 million liters of water into the Pacific in 2012, or about 870 tons a day, according to data from the company on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's website. That's equivalent to 130 Olympic swimming pools and more than twice the daily amount leaking from Fukushima.
Inadvertent Contact
That water contained 3,670 curies of tritium, or 136 trillion becquerels, according to the company, almost three-and- a-half times the amount released from the Fukushima plant into the ocean in the period starting May 2011. The plant also discharged cesium-137 and strontium-90, though at lower levels than Fukushima.
Diablo Canyon's discharges are regulated by the NRC and the plant complies with its licensing requirements, PG&E spokesman Blair Jones said in an e-mail. Total liquid discharges from Diablo Canyon in 2012 were 0.0165 percent of what the NRC allows, Jones said.
The radioactivity in plant wastewater comes from inadvertent contact between the isotopes and cooling water pumped through nuclear plants.
"Tritium is produced when a reactor is operating," Jones said. "Fukushima is not operating so naturally the tritium levels are lower when compared to Diablo Canyon."
Rick Castello, a San Luis Obispo-based project manager for a technology company, said by phone that he was unaware of the discharges from the nearby nuclear plant. He also harbors concerns about the approaching radiation from Fukushima.
"It's not like I think official sources would be intentionally hiding information from the people," he said by phone. "But sometimes we just don't know."
http://enenews.com/report-fukushima-nuclear-waste-will-merge-with-radiation-from-u-s-plants-when-washing-up-on-west-coast-startling-amounts-released-from-operating-reactors-diablo-canyon-officials-admit-to-r
Colin
Hill, associate professor of radiation oncology at USC,
Feb. 3, 2014: [Tritium can] contaminate sea creatures that encounter
the isotope in high levels.
PG&E
spokesman Blair Jones,
Feb. 3, 2014: Total liquid discharges from Diablo Canyon in 2012 were
0.0165 percent of what the NRC allows. “Tritium is produced when a
reactor is operating [...] Fukushima is not operating so naturally
the tritium levels are lower.”
Arjun
Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental
Research,
Oct. 19, 2013 (at
26:15 in):
[The releases are] not continuously monitored. In my opinion, the NRC
is not looking very closely over the shoulder of the companies. For
instance, tritium is released periodically, but I’m not sure when
the measurements are made, and that’s not documented in the
environmental reports. Are the water measurements made during the
release? How are the averages reported? How are the totals
calculated?
Dr.
Donald Moiser, professor at The Scripps Research Institute
(Department of Immunology) and member of Del Mar city council in
California,
Oct. 19, 2013 (at
27:15 in):
The problem with the data is tritium releases are episodic, so
they’ll have a release of tritium one day a month when they report
that to the NRC they’ll say this is the amount of tritium we
released over the year. You have 5 days of release but you divide
that by 365 days it doesn’t look like so much tritium, but if
you’re sitting right next to the plant on the day of release, it’s
quite a bit. There’s some data from Europe that says the spikes are
dangerous. There’s no data in the U.S. that you can interpret.
Latest ENENews Headlines
04:18
PM EST on February 4th, 2014 | 23
comments
Marine Expert on MSNBC: Months of uncontrolled radioactive releases from Fukushima a problem for Pacific, radionuclides building up in food chain — Health threat to Americans not likely if leaks ended soon after 3/11 (VIDEO)
01:01
PM EST on February 4th, 2014 | 78
comments
Kyodo: Dumping Fukushima radioactive water is gov’ts only solution — Risk of “damaging effects” from toxic discharges — Even if fully implemented, around 300 tons of contaminated groundwater will still flow into Pacific every day (VIDEO)
10:00
AM EST on February 4th, 2014 | 87
comments
Report: Fukushima nuclear waste will merge with radiation from U.S. reactors when washing up on West Coast — “Startling amounts” released from operating plants — Diablo Canyon officials admit to recently discharging more tritium than Fukushima (VIDEO)
05:02
AM EST on February 4th, 2014 | 50
comments
TV: Scientists have found nuclear waste off San Diego coast — Fukushima’s problems now being felt in our local ecosystem — Professor most worried about finding ‘pools’ of cesium — “Time will tell how this plays out” (VIDEO)
01:00
AM EST on February 4th, 2014 | 107
comments
Legendary Musician: Am I upset about Fukushima poisoning the Pacific Ocean? Yeah — Am I upset about Tepco & Japan’s gov’t lying through their teeth? Yeah
09:40
PM EST on February 3rd, 2014 | 59
comments
Fox News: So many people are concerned about eating Fukushima radioactive waste — Bloomberg: Radiation will be washing up on West Coast; Includes cesium, one of the “most dangerous radionuclides” released (VIDEO)
07:50
PM EST on February 3rd, 2014 | 30
comments
Former Japan Prime Minister: Seals, polar bears dying after Fukushima radiation exposure (VIDEO)
09:50
AM EST on February 3rd, 2014 | 240
comments
Kyodo: Gov’t to dump Fukushima plant groundwater into Pacific Ocean once plan approved — Senior Scientist: No one believes claims by gov’t labs or Tepco about releases, “there’s a shattered trust there” (VIDEO)
08:25
AM EST on February 3rd, 2014 | 66
comments
Investigation of “deformed fuel assemblies” from Unit 4 pool at Fukushima — “Confirmation of cracks” due to mishandling in past (VIDEO)
07:48
PM EST on February 2nd, 2014 | 214
comments
Famous Actor: Fukushima is dumping nuclear fuel into Pacific — Plutonium “named after devil” — View of nuclear advocate “a little sociopathic” — Entire biosphere at risk from these poisons fatal to everything with replicating cells (VIDEOS)
03:25
PM EST on February 2nd, 2014 | 87
comments
Underground water skyrockets from ‘not detected’ to 1.7 Million Bq/liter of strontium-90 and other beta radionuclides — Antimony-125 now showing up — Tepco changes measurements from ‘under analysis’ to ‘out of range’
10:44
PM EST on February 1st, 2014 | 84
comments
Japan Gov’t Adviser on Fukushima: We have “much to learn from what’s happening at Chernobyl” — Engineer: All my co-workers at Chernobyl are now dead, and I had thyroid removed due to cancer (VIDEO)
03:03
PM EST on February 1st, 2014 | 96
comments
Officials: Tons of Fukushima radioactive waste in area beyond Tokyo, 150 miles from reactors — Higher strontium levels there than spot 1 mile from Daiichi plant — “Southern wind directions and rainfall explain relatively high activity levels”
11:46
AM EST on February 1st, 2014 | 122
comments
Nuclear Engineer: “Very huge catastrophe” for melted fuel to burn into ground — Radioactive material “will go all around the world” once in underground water — Chernobyl made cement barrier below reactor, #Fukushima did not (VIDEO)
09:51
AM EST on February 1st, 2014 | 172
comments
CBS San Francisco: “Widespread distrust” of scientists over Fukushima — Official: “People are worried, people want to know what’s going on” — UC Berkeley professor admits much of his funding is from gov’t: If you don’t trust us, who is it you want to trust? Says man-made cesium-137 is “natural background radiation” (VIDEO)
09:46
PM EST on January 31st, 2014 | 57
comments
Wall St. Journal: ‘Potentially lethal’ Strontium-90 moving deeper into groundwater at Fukushima, levels rising — Asahi: Radioactive material spreading below underground wall next to ocean — Record high on other side of final barrier by Unit 3
06:48
PM EST on January 31st, 2014 | 290
comments
NYTimes: Widespread public distrust of NHK over Fukushima radiation cover-up — Reports: President’s resignation last month related to coverage of nuclear issues — Former NHK employees speak out: “Gross political interference”
04:52
PM EST on January 31st, 2014 | 41
comments
NHK: More damage being discovered in Fukushima Reactor No. 1 — “Destruction” at containment vessel — Concerned about tons of water draining from unknown cracks and holes (VIDEO)
04:00
AM EST on January 31st, 2014 | 265
comments
Nuclear Engineer: Even worse news at Fukushima plant — Radioactive water has formed pathway and is flowing straight into Pacific Ocean (AUDIO)
07:04
PM EST on January 30th, 2014 | 94
comments
NHK broadcaster quits in protest over nuclear issues — Professor censored after 20 years on air — Was to reveal ‘extraordinarily high’ damages — Newly installed NHK chief ‘enthusiastic’ to help spread gov’t messages to audience
04:24
PM EST on January 30th, 2014 | 30
comments
Kyodo: Robot data reveals hole in Unit 2 suspected to be almost 10 square cm; Highly radioactive water draining out bottom of containment vessel — Tepco model shows molten fuel barely underwater — Temperature irregulaties started earlier this month (GRAPHIC)
12:28
PM EST on January 30th, 2014 | 209
comments
NPR: West Coast sea stars melt into mush, “just vaporized… it’s the change of my lifetime” — “Ripping themselves apart… innards spilled out” — “Like the Matrix” — “That many species, that widespread… just scary” — “Makes me wonder, what’s next?” — ‘Possible’ Fukushima fallout is involved (VIDEO)
09:08
AM EST on January 30th, 2014 | 165
comments
12:03
AM EST on January 30th, 2014 | 97
comments
County
officials in California approve action on Fukushima: “An
international crisis of epic proportions” — Monitoring and
testing requested for West Coast
07:40
PM EST on January 29th, 2014 | 144
comments
Map
shows Fukushima fallout in U.S. — Radiation dose in Northeast and
Great Lakes equal to West Coast (GRAPHIC)
04:31
PM EST on January 29th, 2014 | 149
comments
NHK:
Experts ‘shocked’ by what they saw in video of Reactor 1 —
Radioactive water flowing down side of containment vessel —
‘Fukushima Daiichi’s hidden crisis’ (VIDEO)
02:35
PM EST on January 29th, 2014 | 103
comments
Physician:
“It’s predicted that in fact [radioactive particles] may
concentrate as much on the West Coast as anywhere in Fukushima as it
keeps coming wave after wave” (VIDEO)
01:14
AM EST on January 29th, 2014 | 101
comments
TV:
“Discreet accidents” took place at Fukushima that released
radioactive material into Pacific Ocean over course of summer
(VIDEO)
10:32
PM EST on January 28th, 2014 | 54
comments
Scientist
back from Japan: I’ve seen data showing highest radioactivity
levels in ocean that have been observed recently — NHK: Nuclear
waste may be leaking “directly from buildings” not only going
into groundwater via tunnels (VIDEOS)
05:31
PM EST on January 28th, 2014 | 64
comments
Alaska
Professor on Radio: Fukushima fallout a suspected factor in ‘unusual
mortality’ of seals and walrus — We couldn’t test for
plutonium (AUDIO)
01:17
PM EST on January 28th, 2014 | 113
comments
Radioactive
cesium in ocean from Fukushima reached 50,000 times the levels seen
after Chernobyl — “This is why we call it an unprecedented
accident” (VIDEO)
11:07
AM EST on January 28th, 2014 | 173
comments
Reports
from Alaska: Many salmon with strange growths inside, concerns about
health and safety — “Skin illness on white fish raise concerns…
Never caught any like this” — Gov’t predicts ‘catastrophic’
king salmon run (PHOTOS)
09:59
AM EST on January 28th, 2014 | 86
comments
Number
of sick U.S. military first responders doubles — Around 250
victims of Fukushima radiation exposure contact attorney —
Congress: Reports are ‘disconcerting’ (VIDEO)
12:03
AM EST on January 30th, 2014 | 97
comments
County officials in California approve action on Fukushima: “An international crisis of epic proportions” — Monitoring and testing requested for West Coast
07:40
PM EST on January 29th, 2014 | 144
comments
Map shows Fukushima fallout in U.S. — Radiation dose in Northeast and Great Lakes equal to West Coast (GRAPHIC)
04:31
PM EST on January 29th, 2014 | 149
comments
NHK: Experts ‘shocked’ by what they saw in video of Reactor 1 — Radioactive water flowing down side of containment vessel — ‘Fukushima Daiichi’s hidden crisis’ (VIDEO)
02:35
PM EST on January 29th, 2014 | 103
comments
Physician: “It’s predicted that in fact [radioactive particles] may concentrate as much on the West Coast as anywhere in Fukushima as it keeps coming wave after wave” (VIDEO)
01:14
AM EST on January 29th, 2014 | 101
comments
TV: “Discreet accidents” took place at Fukushima that released radioactive material into Pacific Ocean over course of summer (VIDEO)
10:32
PM EST on January 28th, 2014 | 54
comments
Scientist back from Japan: I’ve seen data showing highest radioactivity levels in ocean that have been observed recently — NHK: Nuclear waste may be leaking “directly from buildings” not only going into groundwater via tunnels (VIDEOS)
05:31
PM EST on January 28th, 2014 | 64
comments
Alaska Professor on Radio: Fukushima fallout a suspected factor in ‘unusual mortality’ of seals and walrus — We couldn’t test for plutonium (AUDIO)
01:17
PM EST on January 28th, 2014 | 113
comments
Radioactive cesium in ocean from Fukushima reached 50,000 times the levels seen after Chernobyl — “This is why we call it an unprecedented accident” (VIDEO)
11:07
AM EST on January 28th, 2014 | 173
comments
Reports from Alaska: Many salmon with strange growths inside, concerns about health and safety — “Skin illness on white fish raise concerns… Never caught any like this” — Gov’t predicts ‘catastrophic’ king salmon run (PHOTOS)
09:59
AM EST on January 28th, 2014 | 86
comments
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