Increased Number Of Sites Off The US West Coast Showing Signs Of Contamination From Fukushima

Scientists monitoring the spread of radiation in the ocean from the Fukushima nuclear accident report finding an increased number of sites off the US West Coast showing signs of contamination from Fukushima.

New research has found that radiation from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan has the highest levels of radiation detected to date.

This includes the highest detected level to date from a sample collected about 1,600 miles west of San Francisco. The level of radioactive cesium isotopes in the sample, 11 Becquerel’s per cubic meter of seawater (about 264 gallons), is 50 percent higher than other samples collected along the West Coast so far, but is still more than 500 times lower than US government safety limits for drinking water, and well below limits of concern for direct exposure while swimming, boating, or other recreational activities.

Ken Buesseler, a marine radiochemist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and director of the WHOI Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity, was among the first to begin monitoring radiation in the Pacific, organizing a research expedition to the Northwest Pacific near Japan just three months after the accident that started in March 2011. Through a citizen science sampling effort, Our Radioactive Ocean, that he launched in 2014, as well as research funded by the National Science Foundation, Buesseler and his colleagues are using sophisticated sensors to look for minute levels of ocean-borne radioactivity from Fukushima. In 2015, they have added more than 110 new samples in the Pacific to the more than 135 previously collected and posted on the Our Radioactive Ocean web site.

“These new data are important for two reasons,” said lead researcher Ken Buesseler from the WHOI. “First, despite the fact that the levels of contamination off our shores remain well below government-established safety limits for human health or to marine life, the changing values underscore the need to more closely monitor contamination levels across the Pacific.”

“Second, these long-lived radioisotopes will serve as markers for years to come for scientists studying ocean currents and mixing in coastal and offshore waters,” he added.

Brusseler plans to present his latest findings on the spread of Fukushima radiation at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco on Monday.

Although Brusseler makes the point that radiation levels are far below government safety limits, it is interesting to note that shortly after the 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant governments around the world, including the United States, raised the level of permissible radiation exposure to humans. Read here and here.

In October, scientists admitted that Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant No. 2 nuclear reactor fuel is missing from the core containment vessel. This has led some to believe a meltdown could be underway or that potentially a full-blown meltdown has already occurred in the reactor.

Instead of Protecting People, Governments Cover Up by Raising “Safe” Radiation Levels

American and Canadian authorities have virtually stopped monitoring airborne radiation.

Neither American nor Canadian authorities are testing fish for radioactivity.

Does that mean that we don’t have to worry about radiation from Fukushima?

NOTE:  A lot of evidence points to Government run monitoring systems in Japan, USA, Canada, and Europe being manipulated to protect the Nuclear industry. High detections are explained away by equipment malfunctions, or they just turn the public view off during an event.

In Japan they have been caught placing lead backup batteries near the sensors to shield them, placing the monitoring equipment high off the ground, only decontaminating an area around monitoring stations, plus altering the monitoring equipment so it shows much lower readings.

Examples:

Canada
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/canada-busted-lying-fukushima-radiation.html

Japan

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-23/an-greenpeace-says-fukushima-not-safe/4330212

Fukushima Raging

Tokyo Electric Power Company (translated by Google), Dec 9, 2015: About the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, we will inform you as follows… As part of the accumulated water survey in the trench duct that is connected to each building, it is a confirmation of the radioactivity concentration of appropriate standing water, but the waste treatment building between the contact duct taken on December 3 analytical results of stagnant water is, ensure that it is following values.

 <December 3 [2015]>

• Cesium-134: 9.2 × 10^4 Bq/L [92,000 Bq/L]
• Cesium-137: 3.9 × 10^5 Bq/L [390,000 Bq/L]
• All beta: 5.0 × 10^5 Bq/L [500,000 Bq/L]
• Tritium: 6.7 × 10^3 Bq/L [6,700 Bq/L]

Reference (December 11… 2014):

• Cesium-134: 2.7 × 10^1 Bq/L [27 Bq/L]
• Cesium-137: 9.4 × 10^1 Bq/L [94 Bq/L]
• All beta: 1.2 × 10^2 Bq/L [120 Bq/L]
• Tritium: 3.1 × 10^2 Bq/L [310 Bq/L]

According to TEPCO’s data, total cesium increased 3,984 times (~400,000%) and all beta-emitting radionuclides including strontium-90 increased 4,167 times (~420,000%).

The total concentration of radionuclides in the Dec. 3, 2015 sample is 988,700 Bq/L or 988,700,000 Bq/m^3.

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