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Radioactivity increasing in marine life around Japan

Greenpeace: Japan nuclear plant radiation accumulating in marine life –  CNN.com 27 May 11, Radiation from Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is accumulating in marine life off Japan’s coast above legal limits for food contamination, Greenpeace said Thursday. The environmental group said its findings run counter to Japanese government reports that radiation from the Fukushima plant, damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, is being diluted as time passes.“Despite what the authorities are claiming, radioactive hazards are not decreasing through dilution or dispersion of materials, but the radioactivity is instead accumulating in marine life,” Greenpeace radiation expert Jan Vande Putte said in a press release.
Greenpeace said its teams collected samples of marine life along the Fukushima coast and in international waters outside Japan’s 12-mile territorial limit. The samples were tested by nuclear research laboratories in France and Belgium, and high levels of radioactive iodine and cesium were found, it said.

Fish, shellfish and seaweed all showed significant levels of radioactive contamination, according to Greenpeace. All are widely consumed in Japan.

Besides consumers, fishermen are at risk from the elevated radiation levels, Greenpeace said.

“Ongoing contamination from the Fukushima crisis means fishermen could be at additional risk from handling fishing nets that have come in contact with radioactive sediment, hemp materials such as rope, which absorb radioactive materials, and as our research shows, radioactivity in fish and seaweed collected along Fukushima’s coast,” Wakao Hanaoka, Greenpeace’s Japan oceans campaigner, said in the statement…..

Greenpeace: Japan nuclear plant radiation accumulating in marine life – This Just In – CNN.com Blogs

May 27, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, Japan