Day 444 There goes the maguro…
Radioactive Bluefin Tuna Caught Off Coast Of San Diego
Tests Show Tuna Contained Levels Of Radioactive Substances
SAN DIEGO — Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan’s crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance.
“We were frankly kind of startled,” said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But even so, that’s still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the U.S. and Japanese governments.
[snip]
To rule out the possibility that the radiation was carried by ocean currents or deposited in the sea through the atmosphere, the team also analyzed yellowfin tuna, found in the eastern Pacific, and bluefin that migrated to Southern California before the nuclear crisis. They found no trace of cesium-134 and only background levels of cesium-137 left over from nuclear weapons testing in the 1960s.
The results “are unequivocal. Fukushima was the source,” said Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who had no role in the research.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.10news.com/news/31122527/detail.html
(h/t NuclearFreePlanet)
More on this over at EX-SKF
Radioactive Cesium of #Fukushima Origin in Pacific Bluefin Tuna Off California Coast
Neither the Wall Street Journal article below, or Reuters’, mentions the exact numbers for radioactive cesium, but Japan’s Kyodo News does:
Cesium-134: 4 Bq/kg
Cesium-137: 6.3 Bq/kg
NHK: Fukushima radiation still circling globe — Levels consistently rise and fall in 40-day cycle (VIDEO)
Radioactive materials spread from Fukushima plant
NHK
May 28, 2012
Japanese scientists say radioactive substances from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant may have been dispersed all around the globe in about 40 days.A research team led by Akira Watanabe, a Fukushima University professor and meteorologist […] say the overall density is declining, but continues to rise and fall alternately in a 40-day cycle.
They say radioactive materials from the Fukushima plant fell to the ground in various parts of the world, carried by atmospheric air flows, and then gradually decreased.
[…]
Watch the video here
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New radiation detectors demonstrated on Fukushima rice
KORIYAMA, Fukushima — New machines that can quickly detect radiation in bags of rice were demonstrated on Fukushima-grown rice here on May 28.
Five types of machines were demonstrated, scanning 30 kilogram bags of rice on conveyors. The machines can scan and pass or fail a bag based on the amount of radiation detected in as fast as around five seconds.
Article continues at:
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120529p2a00m0na017000c.html
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Ex-PM Kan apologizes for not preventing Fukushima disaster
Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan apologized for not having been able to avert the Fukushima nuclear disaster as the then leader of Japan, in his first open hearing by a Diet committee investigating the disaster on May 28.
“The disaster was triggered by a nuclear power plant that was maintained as part of national policy, and the government is predominantly responsible for it. I once again apologize for not having been able to stem the disaster as the person responsible for the country,” Kan testified to the Diet’s Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) as an unsworn witness.
Article continues at:
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120529p2a00m0na021000c.html
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Radioactive Japan: Someone Emailed “Go to Hell” to Shimada City, Shizuoka for Burning Disaster Debris
Someone was very unhappy about it, and let the city known in no uncertain terms.
[snip]
According to the city, the emails were sent from the same address between May 20 and 25, and contained the messages like “How dare you continue burning the debris!” and “Go to hell”.
Not that I have much sympathy for the city government, but it is just one example of how divisive the national government’s continued insistence on the wide-area disposal of disaster debris.
These emails could have also been sent by someone who is pro-incineration, to discredit the opponents.
The Japanese society has become not only radioactive but coarse, where pro-nuclear people and experts and anti-nuke counterparts not only go at each other but also scold or ridicule people in the “middle” who are trying to figure out what’s going on. That middle is not a “silent majority”. It is a silent minority dwindling fast, cowed by attacks from both sides.
Meanwhile, a city that is almost bankrupt in Osaka Prefecture wants to accept non-flammable disaster debris. The city, Izumisano City, desperately needs money.
“It’s all about money, isn’t it? If someone says no at 100 million yen, tell them you will double the money. If he still says no, then triple it. If he still says no, there will be someone else who will take that money anyway” – this is the gist of what Dr. Haruki Madarame of the Nuclear Safety Commission said in 2005 while he was still a professor at Tokyo University.
Dr. Madarame was talking about the nuclear fuel cycle and the final disposal site. It’s the same with the disaster debris disposal, with pro-government researchers and the government money.
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Diet deliberations on Japan’s new nuclear regulatory agency finally begin
Read the article at:
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2012/05/160710.html
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TEPCO to Do Endoscopy of Reactor 1 Containment Vessel at #Fukushima, in Late August
Article continues at:
http://ex-skf.blogspot.jp/2012/05/tepco-to-do-endoscopy-of-reactor-1.html
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