Scientists say that forecast models predict the first waves of low-level radiation from the 2011 Japan Tsunami and nuclear meltdown will begin to hit the U.S. West Coast during April.
Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, presented a report to the issue last week saying that more monitoring is necessary now that radiation is starting to appear.
No federal agency is monitoring the Pacific Ocean for radiation levels.
“I’m not trying to be alarmist,” Buesseler said, “we can make predictions, we can do models, but unless you have results how will be know it’s safe.”
A report last week showed that Cesium 134 has been detected in the waters off Canada near the Gulf of Alaska. Buesseler said that Cesium 134 is part of the release from the Fukushima nuclear plant.
“The models show it will reach north of Seattle first, then move down the coast,” Buesseler said.
Naval troops who rushed to Japan to help following the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant are now reporting multiple health issues including losing the ability to walk.
Lt. Steve Simmons, a first responder who served on the USS Ronald Reagan, was among the first troops to arrive as part of Operation Tomodachi. The ship rushed into the disaster zone but was not told they were in the middle of a massive radiation plume released from the meltdown of the plant.
Simmons returned from his deployment and began to experience deterioration of his health. Seven months after returning home, he was no longer able to walk.
Simmons and over 100 other soldiers are now suing Tokyo Electric Power Company, who operate the plant, saying they never told their government nor the U.S. government of the massive radiation release into the ocean and that rescue ships were sitting in the middle of it.
Congressional officials are now getting involved, asking the Department of Defense about the medical conditions of troops aboard the Ronald Reagan and what the DoD is doing to help them.
Observers were more than a little surprised when soil testing showed a California beach that recorded radiation levels as much as 14 times the baseline level were not showing that higher total because of radioactive water from the Fukushima Nuclear Plant meltdown.
Initial concerns were that radioactive water from the 2011 meltdown had finally made its way to California shores. However, testing showed that the soil did not contain any Cesium-137 found in the Fukushima release.
Testing showed the material was naturally radioactive radium and thorium.
The cause of the radioactivity has not yet been identified and officials say even though the radiation is not coming from the Fukushima disaster it does not mean it’s safe to be on that beach.
Local experts say it’s possible that a thorium vein could be coming out of nearby coastal bluffs. Reports also found an oil pipeline once ran near the site and those pipes have a tendency to collect heavy radioactive minerals.
Further testing is being done to find the radiation source.
Like a slow-motion train wreck, the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster is still causing damage long after the world’s media has left the news story behind.
Reports are coming in that the North American food supply is already being affected by Fukushima.
Bluefin tuna caught off the San Diego coast is showing evidence of radioactive contamination. This is the first time that a migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity 3,000 miles from Fukushima to the U.S. Pacific coast. It is a nutrition source that accounts for approximately 20,000 tons of the world’s food supply each year.
According to the report published by the National Academy of Sciences, “We report unequivocal evidence that Pacific Bluefin tuna, Thunnus orientalis, transported Fukushima-derived radionuclides across the entire North Pacific Ocean.”
Source: WND Health – Japan radiation poisoning America?
Soldiers from the USS Ronald Reagan quickly jumped in to help the victims of the 2011 tsunami that devastated Japan.
The troops were simply fulfilling their long held mission of helping the poor and unfortunate throughout the world.
Now, months later, some of the troops involved in the rescue are finding themselves being diagnosed with cancers that could be connected to radiation exposure. At least 51 Navy sailors have been found to have diseases likely connected to radiation.
Two soldiers are speaking out about the situation.
Quartermaster Maurice Enis said that a few months after their deployment to the coastline a few miles from the stricken Fukushima Nuclear Plant, he found strange lumps on his body. He was diagnosed with radiation poisoning and told his illness would get worse. His fiancée, Jamie Plym, said she suffered gynecological symptoms and hemorrhaging so bad she needed to be hospitalized.
The soldiers are now suing Tokyo Electric Power Company claiming the company did not warn the Navy that the tsunami caused a nuclear meltdown and sent huge amounts of contaminated water into the sea. The troops ended up within two miles of the plant while the company ordered an evacuation of towns as far as 12 miles from the plant for safety reasons.
The soldiers say they don’t blame the Navy which acted in good faith.
Typhoons that strike Japan each year help spread nuclear fallout from the 2011 Fukuskima Nuclear Plant disaster according to a new research study.
Contaminated soil is washed away by high winds and rain and then placed in streams and rivers according to the French Climate and Environmental Science labrator and Japan’s Tsukuba University.
The accident sent radioactive particles into the atmosphere that normally cling to soil. The storms then loosen radioactive cesium-134 and cesium-137 from surrounding area into rivers and then into the Pacific Ocean.
Researchers say the mild typhoons of 2012 brought moderate levels of radiation into rivers but the violence storms of 2013 showed a significant increase in radioactivity in rivers.
They said people who use rivers to bathe or coastal fishermen are at risk from the radiation.
The head of the devastated Fukushima nuclear power plant is warning that the 2011 meltdown should be a warning to the world to prepare for the worst.
Naomi Hirose, president of Tokyo Electric Power Company, said the triple meltdown following the earthquake and tsunami should be taken into account when countries build new nuclear power facilities.
“Try to examine all the possibilities, no matter how small they are, and don’t think any single counter-measure is foolproof,” Hirose told London’s Guardian newspaper. “Think about all different kinds of small counter-measures, not just one big solution. There’s not one single answer.”
The interview came as the British government just signed a deal with EDF Energy to build a new generation of nuclear reactors in the country.
Rescuers in Japan have been working around the clock to find survivors of Typhoon Wipha, which has killed at least 18 people according to official reports.
The typhoon triggered landslides and storms Wednesday that left almost 40 people missing on Izu Oshima island, south of Tokyo. The typhoon closed schools and shut down airports in the capital city.
Rescuers were teaming with police officers to dig through piles of mud, collapsed houses and other debris looking for survivors or bodies.
“I’d like to offer an apology because some people could have been saved if the town had issued an evacuation advisory or order,” the mayor of the island, Masafumi Kawashima, said according to the BBC.
The heavily damaged Fukushima nuclear plant reported increased radiation levels because of damage from the typhoon. Contaminated soil flowed into a ditch leading to the sea and one the tanks storing radioactive ground water overflowed.
A third accident with radioactive water from storage tanks has exposed at least six workers to radioactivity according to Tokyo Electric Power Company.
The plant has been suffering a series of accidents since the 2011 tsunami that caused meltdowns in three reactors. The plant has been pumping in large amounts of water to keep the reactors cool since the accident and have been storing them in unreliable storage tanks.
TEPCO reported a worker removed a pipe connected to a water treatment system and six workers in the location of the tank were sprayed with contaminated water. The company said they have not yet been able to determine the level of radiation each worker was exposed to.
On Monday, the plant experienced a minor emergency when a worker accidentally switched off power to pumps that sent water into the reactors to cool them.
The operator of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant admitted Thursday that a second tank containing highly contaminated water overflowed sending radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean.
The leak was the second in less than two months.
Japan’s government is closely monitoring Tokyo Electric Power Company amid worldwide concerns the company cannot handle the massive cleanup associated with the meltdowns of the Fukushima reactors.
TEPCO said that the leaked water contained 200,000 becquerels per liter of strontium 90. The legal limit for emission of strontium 90 is 30 becquerels per liter. The tank reportedly overflowed after a worker miscalculated how much the tank could hold and because the tank is tilted because of an uneven location.
TEPCO says the radiation is mostly confined to the harbor around the plant and should not impact other countries because the ocean would dilute the radiation. The company has also found elevated levels of radiation around other tanks suggestions a design flaw within the tanks.