Tepco doesn’t measure radiation accumulated on the bottom of the sea
Tepco doesn’t measure radiation accumulated on the bottom of the sea http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/09/tepco-doesnt-measure-radiation-accumulated-on-the-bottom-of-the-sea/ by Mochizuki on September 29th, 2013 Following up this article.. Tepco “We don’t see Tokyo bay contamination” [URL]
Regarding the Pacific contamination, Tepco stated they analyze seawater but they take the samples only from the surface of the sea on 9/27/2013.
They commented when they collect seawater samples outside of Fukushima nuclear plant port, the samples are not taken from near the bottom of the sea.
Cesium-134/137 is assumed to be accumulated on the bottom of the sea, but Tepco doesn’t and is not planning to analyze it.
Even inside of the plant port, they collect the seawater samples mostly from the surface of the sea.
Tepco explained the measurement means was not decided by only Tepco, but also with the Fisheries Agency, Fukushima prefectural government and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Also, Strontium-90 is water-soluble, so even if they analyze only the surface water, they can detect the marine contamination level.
According to Tepco and Japanese government, they don’t measure high level of radiation in their sampling points of the Pacific.
How concerned should we be about eating fish caught near Fukushima?
Fukushima Radiation Risks from Eating Fish, Switchboard Matthew McKinzie’s Blog 24 sept 13
“……….CONCLUSIONS
For the foreseeable future, one should avoid eating fish caught near Fukushima. Buesseler says that during his own sampling survey in waters 30 to 600 kilometres from Fukushima in June 2011, three months after the meltdown, the highest levels he found were 3 Bq/liter of cesium-137. This suggests that the consumption of fish caught in these waters would not represent a significant risk to individuals.
There is not a significant radiological risk to individuals associated with consuming fish caught near the West coast of the United States and Hawaii.
Ken Buesseler notes that the north Pacific contains an estimated 100 PBq of cesium-137 from H-bomb testing in the 1960s, so the fallout from Fukushima is adding only a fraction of that. Total discharges from the Sellafield nuclear plant in the UK released 39 PBq over 40 years of operation, according to Buessler. http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/mmckinzie/fukushima_radiation_risks_from.html
Sierra Club outlines Cameco’s uranium pollution
Cameco, Sierra Club face off over uranium licences for Saskatchewan mines THE STAR PHOENIX THE CANADIAN PRESS SEPTEMBER 30, 2013 SASKATOON – An environmental group is raising pollution concerns about Cameco’s uranium mining in northern Saskatchewan to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
But Cameco says the Sierra Club’s allegations that it massively exceeded regulatory limits are false.
The commission will hear from both sides as public hearings start Tuesday on Cameco’s application to renew its mine and mill licences for its Key Lake, McArthur River and Rabbit Lake facilities.
“The most disturbing thing we discovered in the process of preparing the submission were huge, very huge numbers, in terms of pollution that’s coming from the plant and getting into the environment,” John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada, said Monday.
“Every kind of pollutant that comes out of them, their numbers are way over the limits and no one’s been enforcing it.”
The Sierra Club says that as of 2010, water releases from the Deilmann tailings facility in cadmium exceed the Saskatchewan standard by 5,782 per cent.
It says the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment allows Cameco to release water from tailings ponds directly into the environment at Horsefly Lake.
The organization also says at the McArthur River site, concentrations of arsenic, selenium, and uranium in water effluent have exceeded the standards by 54 per cent for arsenic, 700 per cent for selenium and 1,230 per cent for uranium. It says blueberries and fish are contaminated with uranium.
The Sierra Club says the pollution is increasing the risk to human health and local eco-systems.
“We think that before any kind of change, any kind of renewal of the licence, there needs to be an environmental impact study — which there hasn’t been yet,” Bennett said in an interview from Ottawa……..
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission hearings, which are being held in La Ronge, will last three days and will be webcast on nuclearsafety.gc.ca. http://www.thestarphoenix.com/business/Cameco+Sierra+Club+face+over+uranium+licences+Saskatchewan/8978684/story.html
International concern as USA bans food and fish imports from irradiated areas of Japan
FDA Import Alert: U.S. bans agricultural and fishery products from 14 prefectures in Japan due to Fukushima radionuclides — Top Newspaper: Concern over contamination is spreading to most countries around Pacific http://enenews.com/fda-import-alert-u-s-bans-japans-agricultural-and-fishery-products-from-14-prefectures-due-to-fukushima-radionuclides-concern-over-contamination-is-spreading-to-most-countries-around-pacific
Dong-A Ilbo, Sept. 28, 2013 (Korea’s top newspaper): […] Concerns over Japan’s radioactive contamination and its seafood is spreading to most countries in the 
Pacific basin. The United States has recently banned agricultural and fishery imports from 14 prefectures in Japan, up from eight. South Korea puts a similar ban on fishery imports from eight prefectures, while China and Taiwan does so for 10 and five prefectures, respectively. [… The IAEA’s] upcoming probe needs to shed light on the cause and situation of soil and sea water contamination. […] It would be much better if experts from South Korea, the United States and China participate in the investigation. It is natural for a global organization to intervene in an international issue. […] Continue reading
Large area received Fukushima radiation fallout
Textbook: Fukushima disaster contaminated the territory of Japan, Sea of Japan, Korea — Up to 8 orders of magnitude above global fallout background off prefecture’s coast http://enenews.com/book-fukushima-contaminated-japan-sea-of-japan-korean-peninsula-cesium-137-up-to-8-orders-of-magnitude-above-global-fallout-background-in-coastal-seawater
September 28th, 2013_
Title: Fukushima Accident: Radioactivity Impact on the Environment
Source: Elsevier
Authors: Pavel P. Povinec, Katsumi Hirose, Michio Aoyama
Date: July 9, 2013
Emphasis Added
Apart from the contamination of the Japanese territory (Hirose, 2012; Kanai, 2012; Tanaka et al., 2012), the Japan Sea (Inoue et al., 20I2a), and the Korean Peninsula (Hernandez-Ceballos et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2012), due to prevailing western winds, the radionuclides emitted to the atmosphere were mainly transported from Fukushima over the Pacific Ocean (Kamenik et al., 2013) […]
[…] large quantities of radioactive materials released to the atmosphere and coastal waters following a nuclear accident at the Fukushirna Dai-ichi NPP increased considerably the Cs-137 concentrations in coastal seawater off Fukushima up to eight orders of magnitude above the global fallout background (TEPCO, 2012; MEXT, 2012).
Portions of the book available here
Damning verdict on Japan’s ability to stop radioactive groundwater leak
Former US nuclear chief’s damning Fukushima report http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/asia-pacific/former-us-nuclear-chiefs-damning-fukushima-report/1195596 25 September 2013,
The former chief nuclear regulator in the United States has delivered a damning verdict on Japanese authorities’ ability to stop contaminated groundwater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant flowing into the sea. Gregory Jaczko was responding to comments by the Japanese Prime Minister that the situation at Fukushima was under control.
Mr Jaczko told foreign journalists in Tokyo that the surging groundwater “was beyond human control”, warning that a planned underground ice wall around the site would also fail to stop the sea becoming contaminated.
Reporter: Mark Willacy
Speakers: Shinzo Abe, Japanese Prime Minister; Gregory Jaczko, former United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman
WILLACY: It was a last ditch guarantee from a prime minister fighting to win the Olympics for his country. Continue reading
Huge project to make Fukushima area habitable again may be doomed
Fukushima clean-up may be doomed http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/fukushima-clean-up-may-be-doomed-1.1537702 24 Sept 13
Critics say Japan’s government is engaged in a vast, duplicitious and fruitless campaign Across much of Fukushima’s rolling green countryside they descend on homes like antibodies around a virus, men wielding low-tech tools against a very modern enemy: radiation. Power hoses, shovels and mechanical diggers are used to scour toxins that rained down from the sky 30 months ago. The job is exhausting, expensive and, say some, doomed to failure. Continue reading
Water conscious Utah residents oppose nuclear power plant in Emery County
Utah’s first nuclear plant on hold over trial for water rightsThe lawsuit, filed in 2012, was brought by multiple groups hoping to kill plans for a proposed twin-reactor nuclear power plant in Emery County.
HEAL Utah and others want 7th District Judge George Harmond to rule illegal the Utah state engineer’s decision granting 53,600 acre-feet of water to the project.
Aaron Tilton’s Blue Castle Holdings is proposing to take the water from the Green River for use in the cooling process at the proposed plant, which would be located near the city of Green River in Emery County and generate 3,000 megawatts of electricity.
The groups challenging Tilton’s acquisition of the water assert that state engineer Kent Jones should have done much more in reviewing the water rights applications, including a demonstration that the water for the project won’t interfere with other water rights or harm the fragile Green River ecosystem……..
HEAL Utah and Uranium Watch are joined by 16 other plaintiffs, including the Utah Rivers Council, Living Rivers and the Center for Water Advocacy. Others include businesses that depend on the Green River such as Moki Mac River Expeditions and Holiday River Expeditions, and several residents from Green River, Moab and Salt Lake City……..http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=26970736&fm=most_popular
Kazakhstan’s idea to grow food on plutonium contaminated land
“Opening the land for grazing and other land use will be an unforgiveable mistake,” said Leonid Rikhvanov, a professor at Russia’s Tomsk Polytechnic University, in a 2010 interview with the Telegraph. “If the plutonium gets into the biological chain it could cause a cytogenetic catastrophe that will backfire on the health of our children and grandchildren.” Many people living near Semipalatinsk feel similarly
But in this poisoned place, on a small patch of land near a few downtrodden trailers, there’s an unexpected hint of vitality: bright yellow sunflowers, clustered together near rows of corn, and a barn full of plump sheep. Here, scientists from Kazakhstan’s Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology, a governmental organization that studies the medical and biological interaction between radioactivity and the environment, have developed an experimental farm. Their goal is to measure the transference of radioactivity from contaminated soil into edible crops, and from those crops into the meat, milk, and eggs of the animals that eat them. Continue reading
Radioactive cesium in wastes found 500 km from Fukushima near great lake
‘Extremely Malicious’: Hundreds of tons of radioactive waste found over 500 kilometers from Fukushima near Japan’s biggest lake http://enenews.com/extremely-malicious-hundreds-of-tons-of-radioactive-waste-found-near-japans-biggest-lake-over-500-kilometers-from-fukushima
Title: Tons of cesium-tainted wood chips found near Japan’s biggest lake
Source: Kyodo
Tons of cesium-tainted wood chips found near Japan’s biggest lake
Radioactive cesium has been found on an estimated 200 to 300 tons of wood chips that were left months ago near Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture, prefectural officials said.
Samples of the chips show a reading of up to 3,000 becquerels per kilogram, the officials said Tuesday. […]
The Shiga government started an investigation to determine where the chips came from. They were found in the dry bed of the Kamo River in Takashima and other locations near the lake, officials said. […]
“The site is an estuary leading to Lake Biwa, and leaving (the chips) there without permission is extremely malicious. We will deal with the matter strictly,” Gov. Yukiko Kada said.
Cloud of radioactive iodine reaches France, from Fukushima
Fukushima Doom Confirmed? France Hit By Iodine-131 Cloud While New Radiation Plume Expected To Hit West Coast Of America On Tuesday http://revolutionradio.org/?p=58394, September 22, 2013 By Paul Martin A cloud of Iodine-131 has reached France while the recent 5.3 Fukushima earthquake is sending a new radiation plume around the world according to a recent story from Bobby1′sBlog. This latest plume is expected to arrive on the West Coast of America on Tuesday, September 24th. With radiation now spreading across the entire Northern hemisphere and no end in sight, are we reaching the ‘beginning of the end’? Two videos below confirm the severity of this ongoing doomsday situation.
An earthquake that rocked Japan just south of the Fukushima area shortly after midnight on September 20 (Japan time) sent a new plume of radiation across the Pacific Ocean. Apparently radiation measurements in this area have temporarily spiked.
This new plume would arrive on the west coast around Tuesday, Sept. 24. Previous earthquakes have also generated plumes. I remember that the one that arrived after the Jan. 1, 2012 quake was really nasty.
In a previous discussion Iodine-131 from latest criticality it was noted that the iodine spike in Chiba prefecture sludge was deposited in the period August 7 through August 20. According to CRIIRAD, Montélimar, France had spikes in alpha and beta atmospheric radiation on September 4-7. Rhône river water in Avignon showed a spike in iodine-131 on Sept. 7. The iodine cloud must have widened and dispersed quite a bit in its journey across the northern hemisphere… and 75% or more of it would have decayed by the time it reached France. So it must have been quite a substantial radioactive cloud.
Fukushima not only affects Japan, but the Pacific ocean, North America, and Europe too. Australia has had average radiation levels increase substantially, also.
Costly clean-up not likely to make Fukushima area habitable again
Return to the radiation zone: Fukushima clean-up operation mired in fear and misinformation Two years after Japan’s nuclear power plant disaster nobody knows for certain how dangerous the contamination is THE INDEPENDENT DAVID MCNEILL 
, MIGUEL QUINTANA FUKUSHIMA WEDNESDAY 11 SEPTEMBER 2013″……..Nobody knows for certain how dangerous the radiation is. Japan’s central government refined its policy in December 2011, defining evacuation zones as “areas where cumulative dose levels might reach 20 millisieverts per year [20 mSv/yr],” the typical worldwide limit for nuclear power plant engineers and other radiation workers.
The worst radiation is supposed to be confined to the 20km exclusion zone, but it spread unevenly: less than 5km north of the Daiichi plant, our Geiger counter shows less than 5 millisieverts a year; 40km north west, in parts of Iitate village, it is well over 120 millisieverts. Those 160,000 refugees have not returned and are scattered throughout Japan. The nuclear diaspora is swelled by thousands of voluntary refugees who, unlike the Saitos, have not returned. Local governments are spending millions of dollars to persuade them back. Continue reading
Cataracts in the eyes of birds in Chernobyl and Fukushima
the key factor determining the presence of the disease was the intensity of local radiation, with cataract scores of over one proving to be far more common in areas that were above ten microseiverts per hour
Birds live with cataracts in Chernobyl The Economist, Sep 7th 2013 CATARACTS are relatively common in people who live to a ripe old age. They are sometimes seen in animals that live in zoos as well, but in the wild they are almost unheard of. The reason is simple. Losing eyesight is in effect a death sentence for a wild animal that must find its own food and, should that animal live long enough to develop the disease, starvation or predation would quickly follow|cataracts unrelated to age are surprisingly common in birds living near the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
This is revealed in a new study by a pair of ornithologists, Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina and Anders Moller of the University of Paris-Sud, which is published in the Public Library of Science. That cataracts and ionising radiation are related is well known. As high energy ions, usually produced by the sun’s rays, slam into the water found next to the lenses of the eyes, free radicals are created that damage DNA and cause errors to develop in the formation of proteins that make up the lenses, resulting in cataracts.
This led the researchers to suspect that cataracts in birds might be common in areas where there are high levels of ionising radiation, and they turned to Chernobyl as a study area. Continue reading
Japan’s radioactive leaks to Pacific Ocean make it imperative to get international help
Nuclear error Japan should bring in international help to study and mitigate the Fukushima crisis. Nature, 03 September 2013 The radioactive water leaking from the site of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan is a stern reminder that we have not seen the end of the world’s largest nuclear crisis since the Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine in 1986……..
The most important impacts of the leaks will be those on the sea off Fukushima and the larger Pacific Ocean, which must be closely monitored. After assessments by US and Japanese scientists in 2011 and 2012, two major questions remain unanswered. How much radioactivity is still entering the sea? And, given the high levels of radioactivity that have been measured in some species long after the accident, when will fish and seafood from the region be safe to consume? The leaks make it more urgent to find answers to these questions.
To make reliable assessments of any environmental effects, scientists need to be able to collect data on contamination of marine food webs with all long-lived radionuclides, and particularly with caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239. They also need to know the sources of contamination, and to study the transport of radionuclides in groundwater, sediments and ocean currents. Current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his government have promised to boost science; they should encourage and support researchers from around the world in collecting and sharing information. Chernobyl was a missed opportunity for post-accident research — in that sense at least, Fukushima could do much better. http://www.nature.com/news/nuclear-error-1.13667
Pacific Ocean – a handy drain for Fukushma’s radioactive trash
Use sea as nuclear sink, says Tokyo http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/use-sea-as-nuclear-sink-says-tokyo/story-fnb1brze-1226709319491 BY:RICK WALLACE, TOKYO CORRESPONDENT September 03, 2013 THE head of Japan’s nuclear watchdog has flagged dumping contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean amid mounting woes over storage and seepage of radioactive water.
But Nuclear Regulation Authority chairman Shunichi Tanaka said any water released would be treated to an extent that the level of contaminants was well below international limits.
“If (the situation) becomes more severe, and some water falls below regulatory limits, it might have to be discharged into the ocean,” he said yesterday in a speech to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo.
“I know this (previously) created a great stir in some circles. However, I will absolutely not support the dumping of water where the level of contamination is above the limits.”
Mr Tanaka said properly functioning nuclear plants dumped contaminated water into the ocean as part of normal operations, provided it met the limits.
But any discharge of water – irrespective of the level of decontamination carried out – is likely to spark outrage from environmentalists, fishing operators and neighbouring countries. Continue reading
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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