Radioactive Cs in the estuary sediments near Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Cs-137 of estuary sediment impacted by the FDNPP was measured.
Physical and chemical properties were measured also.
Increasing radioactivity was observed from surface to bottom.
90% of the Cs-137 was strongly bound to clay minerals in the estuary sediments.
Cesium-137 is being transported from contaminated paddy fields to the estuary.
The migration and dispersion of radioactive Cs (mainly 134Cs and 137Cs) are of critical concern in the area surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP). Considerable uncertainty remains in understanding the properties and dynamics of radioactive Cs transport by surface water, particularly during rainfall-induced flood events to the ocean. Physical and chemical properties of unique estuary sediments, collected from the Kuma River, 4.0 km south of the FDNPP, were quantified in this study. These were deposited after storm events and now occur as dried platy sediments on beach sand. The platy sediments exhibit median particle sizes ranging from 28 to 32 μm. There is increasing radioactivity towards the bottom of the layers deposited; approximately 28 and 38 Bq g− 1 in the upper and lower layers, respectively. The difference in the radioactivity is attributed to a larger number of particles associated with radioactive Cs in the lower part of the section, suggesting that radioactive Cs in the suspended soils transported by surface water has decreased over time.
Sequential chemical extractions showed that ~ 90% of 137Cs was strongly bound to the residual fraction in the estuary samples, whereas 60 ~ 80% of 137Cs was bound to clays in the six paddy soils. This high concentration in the residual fraction facilitates ease of transport of clay and silt size particles through the river system. Estuary sediments consist of particles < 100 μm. Radioactive Cs desorption experiments using the estuary samples in artificial seawater revealed that 3.4 ± 0.6% of 137Cs was desorbed within 8 h. More than 96% of 137Cs remained strongly bound to clays. Hence, particle size is a key factor that determines the travel time and distance during the dispersion of 137Cs in the ocean.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969716301541

1.This Month

Reluctantly, I have realised that the climate crisis is the most huge and urgent problem for humanity, now. This website is not able to do justice to this enormous topic. All that I can do is to pick out significant information as it arrives, and also note some, (not nearly enough) of the climate events happening.

Meanwhile, nuclear-news will focus on its original purpose, to reveal the disastrous effects of the nuclear industry, and to refute the propaganda lies from the nuclear lobby.

Existential Abrupt Climate Change Risks to Humanity: Part 1 of 3

of the week

Hibakusha Appeal to End Nukes Now!

THE HUMAN EFFECTS OF THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY – theme for June 2019.

Before we enter “a new nuclear age” – learn from the newly declassified Chernobyl health records

April 7, 2019

Fortunately, Chernobyl health records are now available to the public. They show that people living in the radioactive traces fell ill from cancers, respiratory illness, anaemia, auto-immune disorders, birth defects, and fertility problems two to three times more frequently in the years after the accident than before. In a highly contaminated Belarusian town of Veprin, just six of 70 children in 1990 were characterised as “healthy”. The rest had one chronic disease or another. On average, the Veprin children had in their bodies 8,498 bq/kg of radioactive caesium (20 bq/kg is considered safe).

For decades, researchers have puzzled over strange clusters of thyroid cancer, leukaemia and birth defects among people living in Cumbria, which, like southern Belarus, is an overlooked hotspot of radioactivity from cold war decades of nuclear bomb production and nuclear power accidents.

Currently, policymakers are advocating a massive expansion of nuclear power as a way to combat climate change. Before we enter a new nuclear age, the declassified Chernobyl health records raise questions that have been left unanswered about the impact of chronic low doses of radioactivity on human health.

Chernobyl’s disastrous cover-up is a warning for the next nuclear age

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/04/chernobyl-nuclear-power-climate-change-health-radioactivity, Kate Brown , 5 Apr 19, Before expanding nuclear power to combat climate change, we need answers to the global health effects of radioactivity

Igor: Child Of Chernobyl (Medical Documentary) – Real Stories

Open Dialogue: Edward Snowden, Live from Russia | Dalhousie University–

Fukushima Will Leak Forever Day after Day after Day 5-28-2019

#DemocracyNow

U.N. Special Rapporteur Calls for Julian Assange to Be Freed, Citing “Psychological Torture”

Food, Glorious Food. Never Before Has Earth Needed More: Part 1 of 2

nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope