Sea stars should be tested for plutonium, not just for radioactive cesium

Given this research by Nicholas Fisher on Americium and Ken Buessler’s Ph.D. on plutonium testing, one would think that they would test for this at Fukushima. They apparently decided to test for Caesium, instead. The following was an important, taxpayer funded (seemingly DOD) research grant, which is apparently NOT being put to good use

Sea Stars: Sentinels for Radionuclides-Nuclear Waste, Mining Awareness 14 Mar 15 Over 20 years ago, the US government gave money to researchers to study the impact of long-lived radionuclides, which might leak from Russian nuclear waste in the Arctic. It was determined that sea stars could be bioindicators of 241 Americium.

Grant Number N00014-93-1-1287: “This project is assessing the extent to which select species of seastars, brittle stars, and clams typical of the Kara Sea concentrate and retain a variety of long-lived radionuclides known to be (or suspected to be) present in the disposed wastes in the Russian Arctic…. The study we are conducting is examining the extent to which clams (Macoma balthica) and echinoderms such as seastars (dominant asteroids in the Kara Sea include Pontaster, Asterias, and Hymenasier) accumulate these radioisotopes and can be used as bioindicators of released radioactive wastes.

Results of experiments thus far have indicated that M. balthica can accumulate diverse radionuclides from a wide variety of food sources; seven different algal species have thus far been examined. The assimilation efficiency of ingested radionuclides varies greatly among the radionuclides and less among the different foods for a given radionuclide….have found significant transfer of 241 Am, some transfer of 57 Co and virtually no transfer of 137 Cs to the starfish…

Results to date indicate that these organisms have unusually long biological half-lives for these radioisotopes (especially the transurnic element, americium), underscoring the likelihood that the echinoderms could be very effective bioindicators of any released radionuclides from the disposed radioactive wastes“[1]

Apparently studying Russian nuclear waste was more fun than examining nuclear waste dumped offshore from the US coasts. More recently, the grant recipient, along with another researcher (who wrote his dissertation on testing plutonium in the water from Chernobyl), have been interested in studying Caesium in the ocean from Fukushima, rather than Americium and Plutonium.

The US NOAA has this to say about sick Sea Stars:……

http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/apr14/sea-star-wasting.html (more images at link).

It is worth recalling that ionizing radiation can damage the immune system. Even if the Sea Stars have been tested for radiation, which is unclear, it is doubtful that they have been tested for plutonium and americium……….https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/sea-stars-sentinels-for-radionuclides-nuclear-waste/…...

Earlier this year, dead starfish (sea stars) washed up on the coast of Wales. In a February article in Wales online news: “Why were thousands of starfish washed up on a stretch of a Welsh beach?“, 2 February 2015 , by Sam Yarwood, Alistair Hemphill, a coastal ranger for Flintshire Council is quoted as having said about either this case or a similar case in Talacre in 2011, that they might have “lain dead in the sea for a long time. ‘Strong winds and bad weather have then washed them ashore“.

In “Monitoring our Environment: Discharges and Monitoring in the United Kingdom Annual Report 2012“, p. 17, one learns that, between 2008 and 2012 alone, Sellafield had legally spewed 13 trillion becquerels (TBq) into the Irish Sea by pipeline. This is significantly under the 125 trillion becquerels legally allowed. A becquerel is a radioactive disintegration-emission per second. (See bottom of our blog post for more details of emissions) …….