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Fukushima – Strontium 90 is about half the amount of Cesium in the sea water

Sunday, 3 March 2013

Strontium 90 is about half the amount of Cesium in the sea water

 

Strontium90 is one of the four major radio nuclides from the nuclear disaster that we need to be aware of.  According to Prof. Koide, Kyoto University Reactor Research Institute, the amount of strontium90 that was discharged from Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was 1/1000 of Cesium 134/137, that doesn’t sound a lot comparing it with Cesium, but it’s considered to be very harmful to the environment: It is 300 times more radioactively toxic.  While cesium can be out of body in 100 days, much of strontium90 stays in bones of the body, and yet we don’t hear much about it.  The Food Authority checks Iodine and Cesium but not Strontium90 because it’s difficult to measure the exact amount.  It costs ￡300 in Japan to measure one item and takes half a month. Therefore if you measure fish, they rot in this time.  So there has been a tendency to ignore Strontium90.

While Cesium vaporizes easily and moves far away, Strontium90 dissolves in water easily.  Therefore you find it more in rivers, ponds, lakes and in sea water.  This is worrying because once our water source is contaminated, then all living things are affected.  Soon after the accident, milk farmers in the Fukushima prefecture had to throw away all the milk that was produced there.  As a result, one milk farmer committed suicide, feeling there was no hope. Mr. Takashi Hirose, a journalist, and one of the main figures of the anti-nuclear campaign in Japan commented that it was the water that the cows were drinking that had been the cause of the contamination.

According to a survey report by the Marine Information Department Environmental Research Division Pollution survey Room, Strontium90 is about half the amount of Cesium in the sea water.

(Reference) http://www.rui.jp/ruinet.html?i=200&c=400&t=6&k=2&m=272935

When it gets into the food chain it can accumulate further by biological concentration: (a few million times more than Cesium) In Japan fishmeal mixed into fertilizers for soil and into the feed for farm animals such as pigs and chicken.  Because no authorities check for strontium90, there is no control on how much of it is getting into our food and drink.

When it’s taken into the body, most of it accumulates in the bones and stays there for the rest of your life as it has a long half life is (29.1 years).  It continues emitting alpha radiation, damaging nearby cells and leads to the development of leukemia and bone cancer.   Strontium90 can get accumulated in seaweed including Nori, too.

Prof. Koide commented on a radio program that: since the magnitude 7 Earthquake smashed the Daiichi nuclear power plant buildings, lots of concrete buildings now have cracks ; hence lots of radioactive water must have been leaking into the sea all the time. 

Tepco has been pretending they don’t know this, except for occasional reports about finding leakage.  Recently Tepco announced that they are going to discharge radioactive water into the sea this April.  I heard about a report saying all the existing tanks are full.  The tanks at reactor 5 and 6 are actually flooding.  It sounds like there is no end to this situation.  We can’t stop the contamination of the environment once a nuclear disaster has occurred.  All we can do to protect ourselves is to minimize the quantity of contaminated food and drink we take into our bodies.

More detail information on Food safety in Japan:

http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/food-safety-in-japan.html

http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/are-imported-food-safe-after-chernobyl.html

NHK Science & Culture blog  24/7/12 http://www9.nhk.or.jp/kabun-blog/200/127165.html

Strontium90 was detected in Akita, Iwate, Yamagata, Ibaragi, Kanawagawa, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Tochigi prefectures and Tokyo.

Highest level of Strontium90 was in Hitachinaka-shi, Ibaragi prefecture: Strontium90 – 6BQ/m2, equal to 1/2850 of Cesium.

Posted by Mia June at 12:46

http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/strontium90-is-about-half-amount-of.html

65 percent of worlds nuclear laboratories get Strontium 90 measurement wrong –

“The determination of 90Sr proved difficult for 65 % of the participants which submitted results outside the acceptable range (± 20 %). No improvement could be seen compared to 90Sr determination in one of the previous ILC exercises (Wätjen et al., 2008).
The laboratories concerned, i.e. the vast majority of laboratories reporting 90Sr results, are urged to review their analysis procedures.”

European Commission
Joint Research Centre
Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements

https://nuclear-news.net/2012/11/14/65-percent-of-worlds-nuclear-laboratories-get-strontium-90-measurement-wrong/

Radioactive strontium one million times over limit into ocean from Fukushima

“The source of the beta radiation in the water is likely to include strontium 90, which if absorbed in the body through eating tainted seaweed or fish, accumulates in bone and can cause cancer,”

Fukushima floods into Pacific Ocean, Strontium becomes One Million Times over Limit, The Canadian, 07 DECEMBER 2011

https://nuclear-news.net/2011/12/09/radioactive-strontium-one-million-times-over-limit-into-ocean-from-fukushima/

March 4, 2013 - Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized