The now Radioactive Pacific. . . .

But the concentrations of these contaminants are expected to be well below limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); this is not an environmental or human-health threat. For drinking water, cesium-137 levels can't be above 7,400 Becquerels per cubic meter (Bq/m3), or 10,000 Bq/m3 in Canada. For comparison, waters in the Baltic Sea following the Chernobyl disaster reached 1,000 Bq/m3.
The level of contaminants in the waters that just reached North America are less than 1 Bq/m3 of water. Researchers predict that, at worst, levels for Cesium-137 won't exceed 27 Bq/m3 (which is predicted to happen by mid-2015), and levels for cesium-134 won't exceed 2 Bq/m3.

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blacbird said:

Re: radiation. Everything depends upon the level of radioactivity. We can detect extremely minute levels of such things. Chances are you, me and everybody on this board, are bombarded by more radiocative particles from natural concentrations of potassium-40 in common minerals like feldspars, every day, than will result from the extremely attenuated material drifting ashore in the U.S. from the Fukushima reactors. The vast majority of Americans probably doesn't have a clue that they are subjected to this background radioactivity every second of every minute of every hour of every day. And for sheer radiation damage, very few of us suffer more from human-caused radioactive contamination than we do from simple exposre to solar UV and cosmic rays. Not to mention tanning salons.

Now, this comment is not to be considered a justification for what has happened, and continues to happen, with the Fukushima reactors. But some level of realistic assessment needs to set in, beyond the "OMG, radiation is drifting onto our shores."

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kuwisdelu said:

Better not tell them about the cosmic background radiation either.

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benbradley said:

"OH, but that's NATURAL, it MUST be good."

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Japan TV ‘News Flash’: Officials fear melted reactor fuel is now exposed at Fukushima — Tepco: We don’t know at this point if fuel is uncovered — Large drop in water level — Experts ‘struggling’ to find condition of nuclear cores, nothing is known for all 3 reactors

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Some 39 months after the multiple explosions at Fukushima, thyroid cancer rates among nearby children have skyrocketed to more than forty times (40x) normal.

More than 48 percent of some 375,000 young people—nearly 200,000 kids—tested by the Fukushima Medical University near the smoldering reactors now suffer from pre-cancerous thyroid abnormalities, primarily nodules and cysts. The rate is accelerating.

More than 120 childhood cancers have been indicated where just three would be expected, says Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project.
The nuclear industry and its apologists continue to deny this public health tragedy. Some have actually asserted that “not one person” has been affected by Fukushima’s massive radiation releases, which for some isotopes exceed Hiroshima by a factor of nearly 30.

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But the deadly epidemic at Fukushima is consistent with impacts suffered among children near the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island and the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl, as well as findings at other commercial reactors.

The likelihood that atomic power could cause such epidemics has been confirmed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which says that “an increase in the risk of childhood thyroid cancer” would accompany a reactor disaster.

In evaluating the prospects of new reactor construction in Canada, the Commission says the rate “would rise by 0.3 percent at a distance of 12 kilometers” from the accident. But that assumes the distribution of protective potassium iodide pills and a successful emergency evacuation, neither of which happened at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl or Fukushima.

The numbers have been analyzed by Mangano. He has studied the impacts of reactor-created radiation on human health since the 1980s, beginning his work with the legendary radiologist Dr. Ernest Sternglass and statistician Jay Gould.

Speaking on www.prn.fm’s Green Power & Wellness Show, Mangano also confirms that the general health among downwind human populations improves when atomic reactors are shut down, and goes into decline when they open or re-open.

Nearby children are not the only casualties at Fukushima. Plant operator Masao Yoshida has died at age 58 of esophogeal cancer. Masao heroically refused to abandon Fukushima at the worst of the crisis, probably saving millions of lives. Workers at the site who are employed by independent contractors—many dominated by organized crime—are often not being monitored for radiation exposure at all. Public anger is rising over government plans to force families—many with small children—back into the heavily contaminated region around the plant.

Following its 1979 accident, Three Mile Island’s owners denied the reactor had melted. But a robotic camera later confirmed otherwise.

The state of Pennsylvania mysteriously killed its tumor registry, then said there was “no evidence” that anyone had been killed.

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Alessandra Kelley said:

Tepco has been given permission to begin construction of the refrigerant-pumped underground ice wall which they claim will stop radioactive groundwater from leaking out of the Fukushima site.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27669393

Also Tepco began releasing radioactive groundwater into the Pacific Ocean last month.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27487332

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Workers at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant say their effort to freeze radioactive water in underground tunnels hasn't gone as planned.

In April, they began pouring chemical solutions into tunnels at the No.2 reactor. They hoped to freeze the water to stop it flowing out to the sea.

But tests show the water remains above freezing temperature.

Operator Tokyo Electric Power Company believes objects in the tunnels are preventing the coolant from spreading evenly. They also said running wastewater is slowing the process.

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Alessandra Kelley said:

Bad news, but hardly surprising.

The ice wall strikes me as a desperate, magical-thinking Buck Rogers attempt at a solution, a smoke-and-mirrors Vegas show pretending to be socially responsible.

I would not be surprised to hear that a relative of someone high in Tepco runs a company that makes these ice walls, which have apparently been used to aid tunnel construction near watercourses, but only on a small scale and only for the time needed for construction, not the hundreds or thousands of years this site will require.

I still see no sign that either Tepco or the Japanese government is truly committed to cleaning up this mess, or even to admitting how bad it really is.

It seems to me that both Tepco and the government are grabbing for the cheapest possible solution that looks impressive to laypersons and provides some reputation cover, rather than looking for the most effective solution that can be reasonably done on their budget.

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Fukushima Daiichi is still in crisis. Some 6,000 workers, somehow going about their jobs despite the suffocating gear they must wear for hours at a time, struggle to contain the damage. So much radiation still pulses inside the crippled reactor cores that no one has been able to get close enough to survey the full extent of the destruction. Every 2½ days, workers deploy a new giant storage tank to house radioactive water contaminated after passing through the damaged reactors. We wander past a forest of some 1,300 of these tanks, each filled with 1,000 tons of toxic water, some of which was used to cool the reactors.

Leaks have plagued the site. In February, water with a radiation level several million times higher than what’s safe gushed out from a storage tank near the coast on the Pacific Ocean. TEPCO said it was unlikely the water made its way into the ocean, but whistle-­blower workers aren’t as sure. There’s the question of what will happen when—not if—­another major earthquake strikes this seismically cursed land. The latest plan by TEPCO, Japan’s largest power provider, is to build a wall of frozen earth around the damaged reactors and other highly radioactive areas to prevent radiation from seeping out of the site. But even if this and other technological fixes succeed, the government estimates it will take at least 30 years to decommission Fukushima Daiichi and make the site safe from radiation.

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