19 February 2014, 19:57

Fukushima radiation spill hardly linked to rise in Pacific star-fish die-off

Photo: EPA

American scientists see no connection between the massive die-offs of starfish along the Pacific shores of North America and Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Earlier, PBS News Hour rang an alarm on stating that contaminating water leakage led to a number of ecologic disasters, including the massive starfish die-off.

Here is a number of reasons scientists don’t connect the two events:
- Recent tests for radiation in seawater along the west coast have found “no detectable Fukushima cesium.” While small amounts of radioactive have reached the west coast, the largest concentration of radioactive water released during the nuclear meltdown is still moving across the Pacific.

Scientists predict that the radiation plume will reach the west coast of the United States by around April 2014.

- The die-offs are patchy. This doesn’t line up with a giant plume of radiation moving across the Pacific. They’re popping up in certain places like Seattle and Santa Barbara and not in others, such as coastal Oregon, where there’s only been one report.

- Sites closer to the Pacific shorelines are being affected sooner than places farther out to sea. And there have not been reports of starfish die-offs in Hawaii or Japan. If Fukushima were the cause, it would stand to reason that starfish closer to the source would also be impacted.

- Sea star wasting syndrome predates the Fukushima nuclear disaster. As sea star expert and Smithsonian National Museum researcher Chris Mah writes, some of the earliest accounts of sea star wasting took place in the late 1990s. The Fukushima nuclear disaster happened in March 2011.

Anyway, scientists continue infectiousness experiments to find out the clue to the reasons behind drastic rise of death toll among star-fish. But before making an announcement, they will have their research findings reviewed by the larger scientific community.
Voice of Russia, EarthFix

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_0...-die-off-0073/