Slow journey of small amounts of Fukushima radiation in ocean to USA

Gary Griggs, Our Ocean Backyard: Tracking Fukushima radiation across the Pacific By Gary Griggs, Our Ocean Backyard 26 Dec 14, Radiation from the meltdown of the three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant in March 2011 quickly entered the offshore ocean.

The radiation was detected in the water immediately. Several species of fish caught offshore in 2011 and 2012 had radioactive cesium levels that exceeded Japan’s seafood consumption levels, but overall concentrations have dropped since the fall of 2011………..

Anything picked up by the Kuroshio Current as it passes by Japan, whether tsunami debris, glass fishing floats, or radioactive contaminants, heads towards North America, but slowly, a little more than 5 miles every day on average.

At this speed, water moving from Japan in a straight path would take about three years or longer to get to the west coast. Shortly after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown and radiation release, oceanographers projected that it would likely take until 2014 until it reached the West Coast of North America……

the nuclear bomb testing that went on in the Pacific from the 1940s to the 1980s, contributed hundreds of times more radioactivity to the oceans than Fukushima. There is also uranium dissolved naturally in seawater.

So Fukushima is not the largest contributor to radiation in the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Although no U.S. federal agency has routinely monitored the offshore waters for radiation, scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Oregon State University have been analyzing samples intermittently since the March 11 disaster. On Nov. 10, 2014, Woods Hole announced that they had detected trace amounts of radioactivity that could be used to fingerprint Fukushima because of the presence of cesium-134………http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/environment-and-nature/20141226/gary-griggs-our-ocean-backyard-tracking-fukushima-radiation-across-the-pacific

December 29, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Fukushima 2014, oceans

5 Comments »

Cal state long beach did a study of the kelp beds at Catalina Island a year ago and the levels of radiation were up 500 percent. This is congruent with your thesis.

Comment by Yisrael Isaacsson | January 8, 2015 | Reply
- sorry I intended to write incongruent……..but what does it matter, none of you read this stuff, and you will report what you have been told to report
  
  Comment by Yisrael Isaacsson | January 8, 2015 | Reply
  - What an extraordinarycomment!
    I don’t know to whom you are directing youfr comments. But if it’s to me Christina Macpherson, – well I do not have any particular thesis about radiation travelling in the Pacific.
    My small knowledge of this is that the biggest cause odf radioactive material in the Pacific has been the atomic bomb testing of the 5os and 60s. It seems to me that the radioactive particles from Fukushima are travelling slowly towards the West Coast of North America, and at present, pose a minimal threat there. I support the careful work of scientists like Ken Buesseler, and agree with them that it’s not a trivial matter to have radioactive water continually entering the Pacific Ocean.
    
    You tell me that I “will report what I have been told to report”. Really! Who do you think tells me what to report? I’d like to know. I run this anti nuclear site because blind Freddie could see that the nuclear industry is spending $millions on their propaganda – it’s up to some of us, who give a damn, to show the other side of the story. And to take a truly sceptical view of the propaganda from both sides of the argument.
    
    Comment by Christina MacPherson | January 9, 2015
Thank you Yisreal. In America, no one can comment or investigate the nuclear industry without their consent: the fox watching the hen house.

Comment by Jill | January 13, 2015 | Reply
- Not sure what you mean here, Jill.
  Of course we must be very wary of of any government agencies reporting on matters nuclear. At the same time, I believe that we must really strive to find the truth, and not just adopt sensationalist claims that suit the anti nuclear case.
  
  To me, it stands to reason that the Fukushima radiation in the Pacific Ocean must be very much diluted by the time that it gets to the West Coast of America. I don’t want to give the nuclear lobby any ammunition to use against us critics of the nuclear industry. Heaven knows we have plenty of evidence of how bad that industry is. We don’t need to make exaggerated claims about any aspect of the nuclear industry and its appalling history – the truth is bad enough.
  
  Comment by Christina MacPherson | January 13, 2015 | Reply