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USA’s new rules for Nuclear power plants, gas pipelines, endangered species

New regs for Monday: Nuclear power plants, gas pipelines, endangered species The Hill, By Tim Devaney – 01/09/15 Monday’s edition of the Federal Register contains new energy conservation standards, protections for endangered and threatened species, safeguards for nuclear power plants and rules for interstate natural gas pipelines.

Here’s what is happening:

Efficiency: The Department of Energy is delaying a review of the energy conservation standards for commercial and industrial fans and blowers.

The Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy last month released a provisional analysis estimating the energy savings and economic impact that would result from new energy conservation standards for industrial fans and blowers. While the agency did not propose efficiency rules at the time, it noted this review could lead to future rulemaking.

But the Energy Department said Friday it is extending the comment period through Feb. 25 to give stakeholders more time to consider the potential changes.

Gas: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is delaying new rules for interstate natural gas pipelines and public utilities……..

Endangered: The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is delaying new protections for dozens of endangered species……….

Nuclear: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering new safeguards at nuclear power plants.

The NRC announced Friday it will review a petition that requests the agency check to the structure of nuclear power plants for concrete degradation. The petitioner suggests better identification techniques.

sign-thisThe public has 75 days to comment. http://thehill.com/regulation/229010-new-regs-for-monday-nuclear-power-plants-gas-pipelines-endangered-species

January 10, 2015 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

The distinctive “fingerprint” of the Fukushima radiation fallout

water-radiationThe real fallout from Fukushima, Maclean’s  Colby Cosh January 8, 2015 On the verge of the new year, scientists from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans issued the first systematic report of measurements on the spread of radioactive seawater from Japan’s damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor to the coast of British Columbia. …….Accurate measurements of the Fukushima plume are possible because humans wisely stopped testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere in 1980. There is still a “fallout background” of radiation lingering in the world’s oceans from these nuclear tests—and, of course, from those two nuclear explosions that did not quite have the character of tests. But every kind of radioactive isotope has a different rate of decay, usually expressed as a “half-life,” and the short-lived ones from nuclear testing are all gone.

This means that the 2011 Fukushima disaster left a distinctive “fingerprint” of fast-decaying radioactives that cannot be attributed to any other source. So that’s what the scientists measuring the plume look for—fanning out between Vancouver Island and Japan on Canadian Coast Guard oceanographic vessels, gathering up seawater from various depths, and pumping it through ion exchangers to extract the telltale radioactive cesium that spewed out of the damaged reactor.

In 2011, the measurements along the B.C.-Japan line looked just like usual. But the levels of cesium-134, which can only have come from Fukushima, suddenly increased about 1,500 km off the continental shelf when samples were taken in 2012. In 2013 the “fingerprint” of Fukushima seems to have reached the shelf itself.

Cesium-134 degrades fast. What physicists and doctors have been concerned about is the equal amount of cesium-137 spilled at Fukushima: that isotope has a half-life of 30 years, so most of whatever reaches B.C. now will be around for a while. The radiation emitted by the fallout background—the cesium-137 presently left in the ocean by past nuclear testing—works out to about one becquerel per cubic metre of seawater. That figure has now doubled. The total peak level of ocean radioactivity off Canada’s Pacific Coast is expected to reach somewhere between three to five becquerels per cubic metre before beginning to drop back down……..

Overall, the authors of the paper expect the Fukushima plume to make B.C. ocean water as radioactive as it was in the 1980s…….

 The consequences to Japan of the Fukushima accident are still being added up, and the sum is not altogether final until decades of decommissioning work is completed. … http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-real-fallout-from-fukushima/

January 10, 2015 Posted by | 2 WORLD, oceans, radiation | 1 Comment

Plutonium from Fukushima in the Pacific Ocean

VIDEO: Fukushima corium found in Pacific — Flowing into ocean after hydrogen dissolves nuclear fuel — Scientist: We’ve actually seen plutonium floating on surface; “We have no control over this accident… they’ve got leaks everywhere” http://enenews.com/video-fukushima-corium-found-pacific-hydrogen-dissolving-nuclear-fuel-plutonium-detected-surface-ocean-water?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29

2014 Conference on Radioecology and Environmental Radioactivity (final link at bottom of page), K. Buesseler, E. Black, and S. Pike of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; T. Kenna of Lamont-Doherty Earth Obseratory; P. Masqué of Autonomous University of Barcelona, Sept 12, 2014 (emphasis added): Plutonium Isotopes In The Ocean Off Japan After Fukushima— The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plants (NPPs) are known to be an unprecedented accidental source of 137Cs, 134Cs and other volatile radionuclides to the ocean. Much less is known however about the extent of input of refractory radionuclides such as plutonium to the environment. Limited available data from land soils and vegetation, suggest at least some atmospheric delivery of particulate Pu… In 2011, in surface ocean waters, we found ratios 240Pu/239Pu >0.3, which implies a component of Fukushima Pu had been delivered to the ocean… Fukushima derived Pu was not found deeper in the water column.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Science Made Public — Fukushima Radiation:

  • 51:00 — Ken Buesseler, Woods Hole  senior scientist: People have a hard time with radiation risk because we can’t taste it, we can’t smell it… we have no control over this accident.
  • 5900 – Question: I’m wondering about the corium and whether anything you’ve detected in the water is coming form the core, the meltdown?
  • 59:30– Buesseler: Great question… What I’m thinking of are things like plutonium uranium, the fuel itself… We’ve actually seen, I’d say a trace amount of plutonium, I’ve seen two talks on that… It doesn’t come out as a gas, it’s in the ocean, probably because of all that cooling water they put on there. Hydrogen makes it very acidic… it dissolves some of the materials and bring that back into the ocean… We haven’t yet taken that into the seafood… [It] may have come out in the hot acidic water, that’s been — still to this day btw – they’re putting on 100s of tons of water a day to cool those reactors and only recovering about half of that water… They have to cool that thing for decades, for years certainly and that takes water and they’ve got leaks everywhere.

Watch the presentation here

January 5, 2015 Posted by | Japan, oceans | 1 Comment

Buesseler and other scientists are calling for more monitoring of Pacific Coast radiation

water-radiationhighly-recommendedScientists: Test West Coast for Fukushima radiation Tracy Loew, USA TODAY March 9, 2014 SALEM, Ore. — Very low levels of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster likely will reach ocean waters along the U.S. West Coast next month, scientists are reporting.

Current models predict that the radiation will be at extremely low levels that won’t harm humans or the environment, said Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who presented research on the issue last week.

But Buesseler and other scientists are calling for more monitoring. No federal agency currently samples Pacific Coast seawater for radiation, he said.

“I’m not trying to be alarmist,” Buesseler said. “We can make predictions, we can do models. But unless you have results, how will we know it’s safe?”……………

There are three competing models of the Fukushima radiation plume, differing in amount and timing. But all predict that the plume will reach the West Coast this summer, and the most commonly cited one estimates an April arrival, Buesseler said.

A report presented last week at a conference of the American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences Section showed that some Cesium 134 has already has arrived in Canada, in the Gulf of Alaska area.

Cesium 134 serves as a fingerprint for Fukushima, Buesseler said.

“The models show it will reach north of Seattle first, then move down the coast,” Buesseler said.

By the time it gets here, the material will be so diluted as to be almost negligible, the models predict. Radiation also decays. Cesium 134, for example, has a half-life of two years, meaning it will have half its original intensity after that period.

In Oregon, state park rangers take quarterly samples of surf water and sand at three locations along the coast. The water is analyzed for Cesium 137 and iodine 131. Both of those already exist in the ocean at low levels from nuclear testing decades ago.

The monitoring began in April 2012, when tsunami debris began arriving along the Oregon coast. So far, all of the tests have shown less than “minimum detectable activity,” or the least amount that can be measured.

Results of the most recent samples, taken in mid-February, won’t be available until mid-March, Oregon Health Authority spokesman Jonathan Modie said.

Washington does not test ocean water for radiation.

“We have none happening now and we have none planned,” said Tim Church, communications director for the Washington State Department of Health. “Typically that would be something that would happen on the federal level.”

California regularly samples seawater around the state’s nuclear power plants to determine whether the plants are impacting the environment. Those results all are below minimum detectable activity.

Some citizens and scientists are taking sampling into their own hands. Cal State Long Beach marine biologist Steven Manley has launched “Kelp Watch 2014,” which will partner with other organizations to monitor kelp all along the West Coast for Fukushima radiation.

And Buesseler recently offered the services of his lab at Woods Hole in Massachusetts.

His project — titled “How Radioactive Is Our Ocean?” — will use crowd-sourced money and volunteers to collect water samples along the Pacific Coast, then ship them across the country to be analyzed.

So far, results are in for two locations in Washington and three in California. They show that the plume has not yet reached the coast.

Meanwhile, West Coast states are winding down their tsunami debris response efforts.

Oregon’s coastline is seeing less debris from the tsunami this winter than in the past two years, Oregon State Parks spokesman Chris Havel said.

If that doesn’t change, officials likely will disband a task force that was mobilized to deal with the debris.

Last year, Washington suspended its marine debris reporting hotline.

Loew also reports for the (Salem, Ore.) Statesman Journal http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/09/scientists-test-west-coast-for-fukushima-radiation/6213849/?utm_content=buffer51957&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

January 5, 2015 Posted by | oceans, radiation, USA | Leave a comment

Radioactive pollution of Lake Malawi by Australian uranium company Paladin?

Malawi-LakeThe lake provides water for drinking and domestic use to millions of Malawians. Part of the lake is protected as a national park, and it is inhabited by more than 850 cichlid fish species found nowhere else on Earth.

Malawi: Paladin Accused of Discharging Uranium-Contaminated Sludge in Lake Malawi http://allafrica.com/stories/201412301012.html A coalition of Malawi civil society organisations (CSOs) has accused Paladin Energy Ltd, a company that is mining Uranium ore at Kayerekera in the northern district of Karonga over reports the mining company is secretly discharging into Lake Malawi uranium contaminated sludge from the tailings dam at the mining site.

Renowned human rights activist, Rafiq Hajat shared a report compiled by a members of the Natural Resources Justice Network (NRJN) in which it is alleged paladin is discharging uranium sludge from Kayerekera into Lake Malawi.

“A radius of 35 km from the Boma, you will be shocked to see fish of different species dead with some communities along the lakeshore collecting [the fish]. Collectiong as part of their relish. The cause not yet known. Reports from the Beach Village Chairman indicates that this started in late November but Government was not forth coming (sich)” reads part of the post.

Paladin had aroused the wrath of the coalition of the CSOs under the banner of Natural Resources Justice Network (NRJN) over reports which emerged late November that Paladin Energy was planning of discharging uranium mining sludge into the Sere and North Rukuru rivers.

The toxic substances that would flow from the tailings pond at the Kayelekera Uranium Mine into Lake Malawi 50 kilometers (30 miles) downstream include waste uranium rock, acids, arsenic and other chemicals used in processing the uranium ore, the coalition fears.

“It is rumored that Paladin secretly have started discharging the so called purified water and the trip was one of the verification. This is terrible news and may have catastrophic ramifications if not checked immediately.” Reads the statement shared by Hajat.

However, in a statement issued last month, Paladin Energy stated that water from its tailings dam at Kayelekera uranium mine which is discharging into the North Rukuru River poses no human or environmental risks.

The process has been reviewed and agreed by relevant agencies of the Government of Malawi, which is imposing conditions regulating critical water quality parameters, including uranium, consistent with international guidelines” a statement issued in November by Paladin Energy stated.

The company also said that it plans to start discharging the water in early 2015 and that reports it is discharging the contaminated wastes are not true.

Lake Malawi in eastern Africa is the world’s ninth largest lake, some 580 kilometers (360 miles) long, and 75 kilometres (47 miles) wide at its widest point. It extends into Malawi’s neighbours Tanzania and Mozambique.

The lake provides water for drinking and domestic use to millions of Malawians. Part of the lake is protected as a national park, and it is inhabited by more than 850 cichlid fish species found nowhere else on Earth.

Paladin Africa is the Malawi subsidiary of Australian mining giant Paladin Energy Ltd, with 15 percent owned by the Government of Malawi.

Last year, Paladin Africa’s Kayelekera Mine in Karonga produced 1,066 metric tonnes of U3O8, triuranium octoxide, a compound of uranium. One of the more popular forms of yellowcake, U3O8 is converted to uranium hexafluoride to make enriched uranium for use in nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons.

January 2, 2015 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, environment, Malawi | Leave a comment

Fukushiama radiation reaching USA West Coast – at this stage, not a health problem

Media Silent on Fukushima Radiation Impact in U.S.highly-recommended

“My take home is always, don’t trivialize it or dismiss it, but also don’t exaggerate what the effects might be,” says Woods Hole’s Ken Buesseler.

Radiation from Fukushima is reaching the West Coast — but you don’t need to freak out, WP  By Chris Mooney December 29 “…….many Americans have been concerned — sometimes overly so — that radiation from Fukushima, traveling through the vast Pacific ocean, would eventually make its way to the waters off the West Coast of the United States and Canada. And according to a new scientific paper just out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that has indeed happened.

The paper, by John N. Smith of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (a government agency) and several colleagues, is the “first systematic study…of the transport of the Fukushima marine radioactivity signal to the eastern North Pacific,” and concludes that radiation reached the continental shelf of Canada by June of last year, and has increased somewhat since.

But– and here’s the good news — the levels of radiation are very low, well below levels that public health authorities cite as grounds for concern. The radiation “does not represent a threat to human health or the environment,” reports the paper.

The new study is not the first to reach that conclusion.  Continue reading →

December 31, 2014 Posted by | oceans, radiation, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

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 | Fukushima 2014, oceans | 5 Comments

Highly elevated radiation levels across North America might come from Fukushima

radiation-warningFlag-USAFukushima Radiation Up 50,000% With Elevated Radiation Reported Across North America http://chemtrailsplanet.net/2014/12/15/fukushima-radiation-up-50000-with-elevated-radiation-reported-across-north-america/, December 15, 2014 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Beta radiation levels are off the charts at monitoring sites all across North America, according to new reports. But experts are blaming these radiation spikes on practically everything except for Fukushima.

Data gathered from tracking units in California, Arizona, Illinois and elsewhere reveal radiation levels up to 50,000 percent higher than what was observed at the same time last year, and in some cases compared to levels seen this past summer.

EnviroReporter.com says the impacted Global Fukushima Radiation warningsites are scattered throughout the country and aren’t just confined to the West Coast. Readings taken near Los Angeles; Chicago; Montgomery, Alabama; and Madison, Wisconsin, reveal total beta counts per minute (CPM) greatly exceeding the 1,000 CPM threshold considered by the government to be problematic.

In Tucson, Arizona, for instance, a 460 CPM reading was recently taken, which is more than 10 times higher than the reading taken last year on November 27. Similarly, Phoenix, Arizona’s 735 CPM reading measured more than 21 times higher than last year’s reading.

San Diego appears to be one of the hardest-hit areas, with a CPM reading of 650, as of October 1. This figure is 60 times higher than it was last year on the same date, despite the fact that San Diego’s normal background radiation rate typically hovers around 20 CPM.

“U.S. Environmental Protection Agency RadNet radiation monitors have detected renewed surges in atmospheric readings of dangerous beta radiation across the country,” explains EnviroReporter.com about the seemingly inexplicable phenomenon.

“Over a dozen metropolitan test sites have registered four-month highs in EnviroReporter.com’s most recent comprehensive assessment.

Radiation testing site near Chicago records radiation levels thousands of times higher than maximum safety threshold

December 26, 2014 Posted by | environment, USA | 1 Comment

Arctic ice melting rapidly as solar radiation increases

ice-sheets-meltingArctic Ice Melting Due To Absorption Of Increased Solar Radiation http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/576820/20141222/arctic-melting-ice-solar-radiation.htm#.VJ20osA8 By India Ashok | December 22, 2014

In recent years, the Arctic region has been absorbing more and more of the sun’s radioactive energy, causing the rapid melting of ice in the region. Researchers have found a direct correlation in the rise of solar radiation being absorbed and the decrease in the mount of Arctic sea ice. Since 2000, scientists have observed that the reflective quality of the sea ice has been overwhelmed by the increased levels of absorption of solar radiation such that sea ice in the area has been shrinking at a consistently alarming rate. In fact, the overall climate of the Arctic region is reported to have undergone a marked increase in warmth.

Norman Loeb of NASA’s Langley Research Centre in Virginia has reportedly stated that the Arctic region  experienced an increase of warmth in the climate of about five percent. In fact, scientists have concluded that the Arctic region is the only one in the world to have experienced such a rise in temperatures. NASA’s Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments, which have been placed on a few satellites are responsible for uncovering the data and measurements from which the Arctic climactic conditions can be analysed.

Leob went on to say that “Advances in our understanding of Arctic climate change and the underlying processes that influence will depend critically upon high quality observations like these from CERES.” What is confounding most scientists is that the Arctic region is comparatively showing more changes in its climate than any other region on the planet.

Mark Tschudi of the University of Colorado provided enough data that portrayed that since 2000, the Arctic region has lost a total of 1.4 million square kilometres of old ice. Further observation into the climactic conditions of the Arctic region only reinforce the theory that the marked temperature rise in the region is slated to continue increasing at this rate. While most would like to spend more time observing climactic patterns before venturing a root cause for such drastic changes, the possibly that global warming may have a hand in all this could not be ruled out.

To contact the editor, e-mail: editor@ibtimes.com

December 26, 2014 Posted by | climate change, oceans | Leave a comment

Savannah nuclear plant to draw massive amounts of water from the Savannah River.

nuke-tapNuclear expansion gets OK to drink deep from Savannah River Savannahnow.com By Mary Landers, 13 Dec 14  A massive water withdrawal permit issued for nuclear reactors under construction at Plant Vogtle will allow the nuclear power plant to pull an additional 74 million gallons of water a day from the Savannah River.

When the reactors come on line later this decade, the nuclear plant will use more river water than the cities of Savannah and Augusta combined.

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division issued the approval after the agency received more than 250 comments about the draft permit. By the agency’s own count 243 of those letters requested the permit be denied or delayed.

Despite the public outcry, EPD changed almost nothing in the final version of the permit, which was signed Dec. 5 and made public Tuesday on the EPD website.

“It seems to me they are just going to do what they wanted to do anyway,” said Kurt Ebersbach, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “While they’re happy to observe the process, it was not meaningful to the decision.”………….

Environmentalists have argued that water usage is an additional hidden cost of nuclear. A massive volume of water is needed for cooling, with a loss of up to 88 percent to evaporation in the process………………http://savannahnow.com/news/2014-12-12/nuclear-expansion-gets-ok-drink-deep-savannah-river

December 19, 2014 Posted by | USA, water | Leave a comment

Warming of oceans brings hottest year on record

climate-changeWarm oceans keep world on course for hottest year  December 16, 2014  Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald Ongoing record warmth in the world’s oceans has increased the likelihood that 2014 will be declared the hottest year since reliable data began more than a century ago, US and Japanese agencies say.

The warmth comes as conditions in the Pacific remain conducive to an El Nino event forming in coming months, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said.

Surface temperatures have exceeded El Nino threshold levels for several weeks, and the bureau estimates there is a greater than 70 per cent chance of such an event soon.

The first 11 months of the year were the warmest on record, with combined global land and sea-surface temperatures running 1.22 degrees above the 20th-century average, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

This year will be the hottest on record – eclipsing 2005 and 2010 – provided December is at least 0.76 degrees above average, NOAA said…………http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/warm-oceans-keep-world-on-course-for-hottest-year-20141216-1287l2.html

December 19, 2014 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, oceans | Leave a comment

Heating of Arctic oceans may cause dangerous solar radiation feedback loop

Rapid warming of Arctic may trigger dangerous solar radiation feedback loop http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/rapid-warming-of-arctic-may-trigger-dangerous-solar-radiation-feedback-loop/ Delila James | Science Recorder | December 18, 2014 NASA scientists at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco presented what is just the latest dire prediction about the runaway effects of climate change.

arctic-sea-ice-decline1

The researchers discussed a map created by satellites’ heat-sensing instruments showing the rate of solar radiation change in the Arctic, where the rate of heat absorption per square meter since 2000 has increased by more than 10 Watts of energy, according to a report by Wired. In some regions, such as the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, the rate has increased as much as 45 Watts of energy per square meter.

For the past decade-and-a-half, NASA has been using satellite sensors called CERES to calculate how much solar energy is being absorbed by planet Earth as opposed to being reflected back into space. Every year the Arctic ice cap shrinks in the summer and grows in the winter. But because of the record loss of sun-reflecting sea ice in the Arctic seen in recent years, much of the winter ice cover now is thin—less than 6 feet thick, according to Wired.

So, when warm weather returns to the Arctic, the thin ice cover melts rapidly, causing the oceans to heat up. This then causes more ice to melt in a solar radiation feedback loop, in which the thinner the ice cover, the earlier in the summer it melts, which warms the ocean, which melts the ice, and so on.

Compared to 30 years ago, the annual summer melt in the Arctic comes seven days earlier, the Wired report said.

Atmospheric scientist Jennifer Kay of the University of Colorado, who collaborated in the research, said in a statement that CERES, which has only been collecting Arctic solar energy data since 2000, cannot be used to predict any long-term trends.

“Climate is usually considered to be a 30-year average,” Kay said.

December 19, 2014 Posted by | climate change, oceans | Leave a comment

Massive release of Fukushima radioactive water into Pacific Ocean

Pacific-Ocean-drainNRA head signals massive release of tainted water to help decommission Fukushima site 
The head of Japan’s nuclear watchdog said contaminated water stored at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant should be released into the ocean to ensure safe decommissioning of the reactors.  Shunichi Tanaka, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, made the comment Dec. 12 after visiting the facility to observe progress in dismantling the six reactors. The site was severely damaged in the tsunami generated by the 2011 earthquake.
“I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of tanks (holding water tainted with radioactive substances),” Tanaka told reporters, indicating they pose a danger to decommissioning work. “We have to dispose of the water.”  
With regard to expected protests by local fishermen over the discharge, Tanaka said, “We also have to obtain the consent of local residents in carrying out the work, so we can somehow mitigate (the increase in tainted water).”
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201412130042

December 15, 2014 Posted by | Fukushima 2014, oceans | Leave a comment

As USA government ignores the issue, USA citizen scientists find Fukushima radiation in Pacific Ocean

Pacific-Ocean-drainFukushima radiation found 400 miles west of Newporthttp://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2014/12/10/fukushima-radiation-found-miles-west-newport-ore/20223771/ Tracy Loew, Statesman Journal On the last Sunday in November, Terry Waldron waded into the surf at Nye Beach in Newport and filled a plastic bucket from the frigid Pacific Ocean.

The salty water now sits in a laboratory across the country, at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, awaiting testing on highly sensitive equipment.

Waldron is part of a corps of West Coast citizen scientists sampling ocean water near their homes for traces of radiation from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant on the other side of the Pacific.

New data from Woods Hole shows very low levels of Fukushima radiation about 400 miles due west of Newport, as well as at other offshore sites along the West Coast.

At current levels, the radiation is not expected to harm humans or the environment.

But in the absence of federal monitoring, citizens such as Waldron have taken it upon themselves to test for its arrival on beaches. Continue reading →

December 13, 2014 Posted by | oceans, USA | Leave a comment

Highly radioactive mushrooms found in Tochigi Prefecture

flag-japan4158 bq/kg Mushrooms Found In Tochigi Prefecture , Simply Info, Dec 7 2014, Mushrooms from Tochigi prefecture tested and found to have 4158 bq/kg of cesium. The test was recently completed and shows that the problems of radioactive foods it not “over” and not isolated to Fukushima prefecture………..http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=14189

December 10, 2014 Posted by | environment, Japan | Leave a comment

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