Thread: Fukushima's Radioactive Ocean Water Arrives At W. Coast of Canada

Fukushima's Radioactive Ocean Water Arrives At W. Coast

FEB 25, 2014 11:49 AM ET // BY BECKY OSKIN, LIVESCIENCE

VIEW RELATED GALLERY »

WHOI/CENTER FOR MARINE AND ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVITY

Radiation from Japan's leaking Fukushima nuclear power plant has reached waters offshore Canada, researchers said today at the annual American Geophysical Union's Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu.
PLAY VIDEO

Stop Worrying About Fukushima Radiation
Is the Fukushima radiation spreading far, and is there any way to tell if it's actually from Japan?
DCI


Two radioactive cesium isotopes, cesium-134 and cesium-137, have been detected offshore of Vancouver, British Columbia, researchers said at a news conference. The detected concentrations are much lower than the Canadian safety limit for cesium levels in drinking water, said John Smith, a research scientist at Canada's Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
Tests conducted at U.S. beaches indicate that Fukushima radioactivity has not yet reached Washington, California or Hawaii, said Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Mass.
The Lost Pets of Fukushima: Photos

"We have results from eight locations, and they all have cesium-137, but no cesium-134 yet," Buesseler said. (Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. In this case, cesium-137 has more neutrons than cesium-134.)
The scientists are tracking a radioactive plume from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Three nuclear reactors at the power plant melted down after the March 11, 2011, Tohoku earthquake. The meltdown was triggered by the massive tsunami that followed the quake. [Fukushima Radiation Leak: 5 Things You Should Know]
Cesium signals
The initial nuclear accident from the Fukushima reactors released several radioactive isotopes, such as iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137. Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years and remains in the environment for decades. Cesium-134, with a half-life of only two years, is an unequivocal marker of Fukushima ocean contamination, Smith said.
Japan Earthquake and Tsunami: Before and After

"The only cesium-134 in the North Pacific is there from Fukushima," he said. Cesium-137, on the other hand, is also present from nuclear weapons tests and discharge from nuclear power plants.
Smith and his colleagues tracked rising levels of cesium-134 at several ocean monitoring stations west of Vancouver in the North Pacific beginning in 2011. By June 2013, the concentration reached 0.9 Becquerels per cubic meter, Smith said. All of the cesium-134 was concentrated in the upper 325 feet (100 m) of the ocean, he said. They are awaiting results from a February 2014 sampling trip.
The U.S. safety limit for cesium levels in drinking water is about 28 Becquerels, the number of radioactive decay events per second, per gallon (or 7,400 Becquerels per cubic meter). For comparison, uncontaminated seawater contains only a few Becquerels per cubic meter of cesium.
Japan Tsunami Debris Confirmed in California

Cesium-137 levels at U.S. beaches were 1.3 to 1.7 Becquerels per cubic meter, Buesseler said. That's similar to background levels in the ocean from nuclear weapons testing, suggesting the Fukushima plume has not reached the U.S. coastline yet, he said.
The new monitoring data does not show which of two competing models best predicts the future concentration of Fukushima radiation along the U.S. West Coast, Smith said. These models suggest that radionuclides from Fukushima will begin to arrive on the West Coast in early 2014 and peak in 2016. However, the models differ in their predictions of the peak concentration of cesium — from a low of 2 to a maximum of 27 Becquerels per cubic meter. Both peaks are well below the highest level recorded in the Baltic Sea after Chernobyl, which was 1,000 Becquerels per cubic meter.
"It's still a little too early to know which one is correct," Smith said.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/ocea...ast-140222.htm

RELATED

http://www.alipac.us/f19/fukushima-r...l-fake-295406/

RELATED

http://www.alipac.us/f19/fukushima-r...-april-298265/

• 

Radioactive materials from Japan's Fukushima disaster reaches Canada, say scientists

Researchers say that minuscule traces of radioactive cesium originating from Japan's ill-fated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been found in Vancouver.

By Sudeshna Chowdhury, Staff writer / February 25, 2014

• 

Highly contaminated water leaked from a large storage tank is seen at the H6 area of the contaminated water storage tanks, at Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO)'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture in this February 20, 2014 handout photo released by TEPCO.
Tokyo Electric Power Co/Reuters

Radioactive material from Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has apparently now reached North America's Pacific coast.

Researchers at the annual American Geophysical Union's Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu announced that traces of radioactive cesium isotopes – cesium-134 and cesium-137– from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been detected in Vancouver.

A story by Becky Oskin on LiveScience.com quotes John Smith, a research scientist at Canada's Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. "The detected concentrations are much lower than the Canadian safety limit for cesium levels in drinking water," he said.

Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years, but cesium-134 has a half-life of just two years, indicating that the material detected in Vancouver is of recent vintage, and not a product of older nuclear waste.

RECOMMENDED: Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz

Traces of contamination from Fukushima might float across the Pacific Ocean and reach the West Coast sometime this year, Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and director of the Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity (CMER) told the Monitor.

“But the complex behavior of coastal currents will likely result in varying intensities and changes that cannot be predicted from models alone,” he said in a press release.

Dr. Buesseler has collected samples from eight spots so far, but no cesium-134 has been detected yet.

Even if traces of isotopes are spotted later, the "levels of any Fukushima contaminants in the ocean will be many thousands of times lower after they mix across the Pacific and arrive on the West Coast of North America," according to WHOI. Therefore, there may not have significant impact on marine life at such low levels, says Buesseler.

“Whether you agree with predictions that levels of radiation along the Pacific Coast of North America will be too low to be of human health concern or to impact fisheries and marine life, we can all agree that radiation should be monitored, and we are asking for your help to make that happen,” said Buesseler, who has launched a crowdsourcing campaign to carry out analyses of sea water samples.

On Feb. 20, about 100 cubic meters of radioactive water leaked from an overflowing water storage tank at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station after a valve was accidentally left open.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/201...say-scientists