Nuclear news: Fukushima Radiation detected on North American Shores

Radiation from Fukushima reactor detected off Vancouver Island

http://www.cp24.com/news/radiation-from-fukushima-reactor-detected-off-vancouver-island-1.2314613

VICTORIA -- Radiation from the leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor has been detected on the shores of Vancouver Island, four years after a deadly earthquake and tsunami in Japan killed 16,000 people.

University of Victoria chemical oceanographer Jay Cullen said Monday that it's the first time radiation has been found on the shorelines of North America since the quake and tsunami ravaged the Japanese north coast and disabled the nuclear reactor.

Low levels of the radioactive isotope Cesium-134, which scientists say can only come from Fukushima, were found in waters collected on Feb. 19 off a dock at Ucluelet, B.C., about 315 kilometres west of Victoria, said Cullen.

Last November, the first sample containing detectable radioactivity from Fukushima was discovered 150 kilometres off the coast of northern California.

Over the past 15 months, scientists and citizen volunteers have been collecting water samples at more than 60 sites along the Canadian and U.S. west coasts and in Hawaii as they've looked for traces of radioactive isotopes from Japan.

"This is the first sample that's been collected in North America with this contaminated plume of sea water, which we've seen offshore, but it's the first time we've actually seen it at the shoreline," Cullen said.

He said the arrival of radioactive water on North American shores from Japan was expected this year. The distance from Japan to Ucluelet is more than 7,600 kilometres.

"The levels we are seeing are so low that we don't expect there to be impacts on the health of either the marine environment or people living along the coast," Cullen said.

"We're more than a thousand-fold below even the drinking water standard in the coastal waters being sampled at this point. Those levels are much much much lower than what's allowable in our drinking water."

Cullen said in a statement that if a person swam for six hours each day in water with Cesium levels twice as high as those found in Ucluelet, they'd receive a radiation dose that is more than 1,000 times less than that of a single dental X-ray.

Since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered the nuclear disaster, there has been widespread concern about the potential danger posed by radioactivity from Japan crossing the Pacific Ocean.

Cullen leads a marine radioactivity monitoring network formed last August that includes scientists in Canada and the U.S., health experts, non-governmental organizations and citizens who help collect samples along the Pacific coast.

The InFORM Network, or Integrated Fukushima Ocean Radionuclide Monitoring, received $630,000 in federal funds for three years through the Marine Environmental Observation Prediction and Response Network.

Research partners in the network include Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, Health Canada, the University of Ottawa, the University of British Columbia and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Fukushima News 4/6/15: Scientists Detect Fukushima Radiation on North American Shores

US lab: Fukushima Radioactivity Detected In Canada

US researchers say small and harmless amounts of radioactivity from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident have been detected on the west coast of Canada.
The scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announced on Monday that samples of seawater collected from the shoreline of Ucluelet, British Columbia, in February contained trace amounts of cesium-134.

They say Fukushima would have to be the source of the radioactive cesium, as it is the only place recently where the material was produced and the substance has a 2-year half-life.

Cesium-134 has been detected in waters off the United States and Canada, but this is the first time it has been detected along a shore.

The scientists say the sample in Ucluelet contained 1.4 Becquerels per cubic meter, well below the internationally set level at which human and marine life can be affected.

They say the levels were extremely low but they will continue to carefully monitor the situation, as more sites in the region are expected to show detectable levels of cesium-134 in coming months.

Fukushima radioactivity detected for the first time along B.C. coastline; levels harmless

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news...

Radiation from Fukushima disaster newly detected off Canada's coast
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews...

Explosion At Power Plant Causes Widespread Power Outages in D.C

Power loss hits Washington, DC, government left in dark

Fukushima 4/5/15: Potential Nuke Meltdowns May Restart; *Godzilla* New Tokyo Tourism Ambassador

A thermometer of Reactor 2 indicates a rapid increase of temperature / From 20℃ to 70℃ within 6 hours

http://fukushima-diary.com/2015/04/a-thermometer-of-reactor-2-indicates-a-rapid-increase-of-temperature-from-20%E2%84%83-to-70%E2%84%83-within-6-hours/

According to Tepco’s plant parameter, one of the thermometers in Reactor 2 is showing an abnormal increase of temperature.

The data is published every 6 hours.

The thermometer is located in dry well of primary containment vessel. It has been indicating 21℃ until 5AM of 4/3/2015, however it jumped up to 70℃ by 11AM of the same day. It kept on increasing and reached 88℃ by 5PM of 4/5/2015.

At 11AM of 4/7/2015, it is still 84℃.

From Tepco’s credibility review of thermometers, the issued thermometer is still supposed to be used for “reference”.

They observed an abnormal change in the indicated temperature, however they could not conclude it is out of order.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/f1/pla/2015/images/csv_6h_data_2u-j.csv

http://www.tepco.co.jp/cc/press/betu15_j/images/150401j0301.pdf

http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/f1/pla/2015/images/instruments-j.pdf

Iori Mochizuki

National Geographic: Newly discovered mass mortality in sea creatures along California coast ...

VIDEO: FUKUSHIMA WEST COAST IMPACT

Studies cited in order presented…

– Behrens et al (2012). Model simulations on the long-term dispersal of 137Cs released into the Pacific Ocean off Fukushima. Environ Res Lett 7:034004.

– Folsom & Mohanrao (1962). Variation of Cs-137 in California Coastal Sea Water. J Rad Res 3(1): 1-3.

– the Cs137 measure for ‘now’ is the average of shore-line measures from 2014

– Povinec et al (2013). Cesium, iodine and tritium in NW Pacific waters – a comparison of the Fukushima impact with global fallout. Biogeosciences 10(8):5481-5496.

– Rossi et al (2013). Multi-decadal projections of surface and interior pathways of the Fukushima cesium-137 radioactive plume. Deep Sea Res Part I Oceanogr Res Pap 80: 37–46.

– Rossi et al (2014). Corrigendum to “Multi-decadal projections of surface and interior pathways of the Fukushima cesium-137 radioactive plume”. Deep Sea Res Part I Oceanogr Res Pap, 10.1016/j.dsr.2014.08.007

– Nakano & Povinec (2012). Long-term simulations of the 137Cs dispersion from the Fukushima accident in the world ocean. J Enviro Rad. 111: 109–115.

– Abbot & Mix (1979). Radiation effects of tritiated seawater on development of the goose barnacle, Pollicipes polymerus. Health Phys. 36(3):283-7.

– UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of ionizing radiation, Vol II Annexes C,D E, page 57.

– Driver (1994). Ecotoxicity Literature Review of Selected Hanford Site Contaminants, PNL-9394, Table 2.1.

– FAO (2011). Review of the state of world marine fishery resources. Technical Paper 569, Fig A3.

– Potassium radioactivity in seawater 12 Bq/liter = 12,000 Bq/m^3

– Peak level near-Fukushima from (see Figure 2): Buesseler (2011). Impacts of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants on Marine Radioactivity. Environ Sci Technol. 1;45(23):9931-5.

– Recent Fukushima ocean Cs-137 fallout from : ‪http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushim… Radioactivity has stabilized around 1,000 Bq/m³ near discharge points within the “Near Fukushima” area, with a slight downward trend
– Note: 1 Bq/L = 1,000 Bq/m³

– Madigan et al (2013). Pacific bluefin tuna transport Fukushima-derived radionuclides from Japan to California. Environ Sci Technol, 47(5), 2287−2294

– FDA food-safety level for Cesium 134+137

As per ‪http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/c… “1 cubic meter of water is approximately 1000 kilograms,” the FDA’s Cs(134+137) level of 1,200 Bq/kg is approximately 1,200,000 Bq/m³ of seawater.

– Fisher et al (2013). Evaluation of radiation doses and associated risk from the Fukushima nuclear accident to marine biota and human consumers of seafood. PNAS, 110(26), Table 1.

– Johansen et al (2015). Radiological dose rates to marine fish from the fukushima daiichi accident: the first three years across the north pacific. Environ Sci Technol. 49(3):1277-85.
Table S5: ‪http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021… 

Note: nobody eats the fish in the FDNPP port, fishing other than for testing is banned there. Johansen and colleagues’ Table S5 data simply assumes if those fish were consumed, then the doses would be…

* * * * *

SOURCE: Goddard’s Journal