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Fukushima radiation has reached U.S. shores

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posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 05:11 AM
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For the first time, seaborne radiation from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster has been detected on the West Coast of the United States.

Cesium-134, the so-called fingerprint of Fukushima, was measured in seawater samples taken from Tillamook Bay and Gold Beach in Oregon, researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are reporting.

Because of its short half-life, cesium-134 can only have come from Fukushima.

Also for the first time, cesium-134 has been detected in a Canadian salmon, the Fukushima InFORM project, led by University of Victoria chemical oceanographer Jay Cullen, is reporting.

LINK


"Wherever there's radiation cesium [from the Fukushima disaster], there's going to be plutonium." - Arnie Gundersen
SOURCE

I stopped eating seafood a long time ago because I was already aware of the information above. The levels of cesium that have been detected off U.S. shores supposedly won't harm you because there's not a large enough quantity involved. That's good news, but what about the plutonium that the experts in the article linked above are not mentioning?

This goes beyond consuming seafood from the Pacific Ocean. The video below is specifically about the Carlsbad desalination plant. Quoting from the video:

Kevin Blanch: "Now, I've been protesting this for years. You've seen my videos. I stand there right at the cliffs. I've been right at the plant. I've interviewed them. I've argued with them. I told them many many times...[Question] Do your filters take out radiation from Fukushima? [Answer] What's that? [Question] Can you filter radiation with these filters (scrubbers) at the Carlsbad desal plant?...[Answer] What? Huh?"

My conclusion is that we're looking at plutonium in the water supply for a large portion of California.


www.youtube.com...
edit on 8-12-2016 by Profusion because: (no reason given)



posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 06:26 AM
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Fukushima. The gift to the world that never stops giving.

Say. Didn't the Fukushima thread die though? Don't worry, this one will probably die too, can't have any "fake news" being reported, can we?

When you play with matches (or deadly radioactive elements) you will get burned, or at least catch the house on fire.



posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 07:23 AM
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a reply to: Profusion


Can you explain to the folks that don't know.

Cesium 134 was detected at 0.3 bq.
How does that exposure compare to a dental X-ray or a cross country flight?



posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 07:45 AM
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originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: Profusion


Can you explain to the folks that don't know.

Cesium 134 was detected at 0.3 bq.
How does that exposure compare to a dental X-ray or a cross country flight?


I know these are right:
10 mSv = 1 bq
1 chest x-ray = 0.1 msV

I think my math is right below, but it's early:
.3 bq = 300 chest x-rays



posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 07:47 AM
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a reply to: Bluntone22

I don't think that Profusion is saying that cesium 134 is the problem, it's the other elements that are not being talked about, and there are many of them with a longer half-life.




The levels of cesium that have been detected off U.S. shores supposedly won't harm you because there's not a large enough quantity involved. That's good news, but what about the plutonium that the experts in the article linked above are not mentioning?


ETA: It seems that I remember the excuse was that elements like plutonium are heavier and hasn't spread as far as the cesium, could be wrong though.
edit on 8-12-2016 by MichiganSwampBuck because: added extra comments



posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 07:51 AM
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At 0.3 bq, that pales in comparison to eating a banana which has around 19.2 bq from it's potassium.

You need to eat 274 bananas a day for 7 years to show signs of radiation poisoning.

You would need to drink 17,000 gallons of seawater a day for 7 years to show signs of radiation poisoning.



edit on 8-12-2016 by TheLotLizard because: (no reason given)



posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 10:05 AM
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I thought the oceans shear size/volume would heavily dilute anything from Fukushima, taking the risk factors away... well, unless you're swimming off the shores of Japan...



posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 10:24 AM
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a reply to: TheLotLizard

That would be true IF you were not exposed to any other radiation.

If you add in all the radiation that a person is exposed to in one day then the number of bananas they could eat each day before showing signs of radiation poisoning would be less than 274.



posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 10:37 AM
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a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

When they're talking about 'heavier elements' they're talking about atomic weight, not physical weight. The physical weight of the suspended particles depends upon the size of the particle.

Due to the explosion at reactor 3 (roughly equivalent to a MOAB and measured around 5.3-5.6 as an earthquake when it occurred), there were undoubtedly some portions of plutonium and uranium which were aerosolized; made into particles about the same size as smoke particles. These are now free in the atmosphere, some of which fell into the ocean, others of which became airborne.

Aerosols can be resuspended in the atmosphere via a variety of methods. Just think what would happen should you inhale something of this size, it would pass into your bloodstream and, depending on the isotope, would lodge within particular tissues of the body. Some isotopes mimic calcium and go to your bones, some lodge within muscle tissue, still others stay within the lungs.

That's the reason they were passing out iodine pills, radioactive iodine finds it's way to the thyroid and so a person take regular iodine to fill up the thyroid so it does not take in any of the radioactive isotope. Fortunately this isotope has a very short half life, however due to this any of it being detected means that there is unmoderated fission occurring somewhere in the coruim masses.

We will be dealing with the remains of Fukushima Daiichi for longer than we have written history.

Let that sink in for a bit.



posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 11:12 AM
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originally posted by: jhn7537
I thought the oceans shear size/volume would heavily dilute anything from Fukushima, taking the risk factors away... well, unless you're swimming off the shores of Japan...


.3bq is over 1000 times below the safe level.



posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 12:25 PM
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a reply to: Bluntone22

The article kind of explains it but it is not up front and center.

"Cesium-134 has a half life of two years" (I'd clip the quote and post it but it is one those sites) the article states. That basically says that what they are detecting can only come from Fukushima. Since it is from FIVE years ago, the original Cs-134 can only be what is left over from the original release and it is very small amount (see posts about the banana radiation).

The big, bad scary one is Cs-137 which the article states "has a half life of 30 years." Which means in 30 years half of it will be remaining. This is the contaminate around Chernobyl. Your body treats it like a salt (I think, might be a little off on this statement. It is early and need more joe) and tries to store it in soft tissues like your thyroid or lungs. There, in high enough concentrations, you get exposed to beta decay constantly which increases the risk of cancerous cells. Cs-137 also gets into soil and plants as well. This is why the clean up around Fukushima will take a long time.

Both of my paragraphs are stated in the article in three sentences with no further explanation which is a disservice to readers. BTW, radiation from Fukushima reached US shores less than a week after the explosions--in the air. So I find the article title further misleading.


edit on 8-12-2016 by TEOTWAWKIAIFF because: clarity



posted on Dec, 8 2016 @ 01:00 PM
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a reply to: Profusion

Oh dear lawd! Won't somebody please think of the children!



posted on Dec, 11 2016 @ 10:44 PM
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originally posted by: dogstar23
I know these are right:
10 mSv = 1 bq
1 chest x-ray = 0.1 msV
The chest x-ray looks right but there is no direct conversion between Sieverts and becquerels since the former represents an effect on human tissue and the latter is a raw form of radiation not considering any effect on tissue.


I think my math is right below, but it's early:
.3 bq = 300 chest x-rays
No, for reasons stated above, chest X-ray exposure isn't measured in becquerels but in Sieverts, and there's not any direct equivalence in all circumstances because they measure different things, and that's way, way off. First of all the Pacific ocean without any contamination from Fukushima is 1-2 Bq/m3, and there's no way swimming in the Pacific ocean before the Fukushima contamination is like getting 900-2000 X-rays, it's not like getting even 1 Chest X-ray, and even if you wanted to do a conversion you would need to specify the length of exposure time which you didn't specify. Is that one minute or one hour exposure to 0.3 Bq/m3 or what? It's wrong.

ourradioactiveocean.org...

We expect samples from the surface waters of the western Pacific that have not been contaminated by the Fukushima source to have 137Cs activity of between 1 and 2 Bq/m3
0.3bq/m3 is not that much, I wouldn't worry about it. I would worry about the levels off the coast of Japan and I wouldn't want to swim there or eat fish caught near the disaster site, but 0.3Bq/m3 isn't enough to make me worry very much. The 1-2 Bq/m3 of 137Cs already there before Fukushima don't make me worry either. Some of that is natural radiation and some is from the nuclear testing in the 1960s.

This should emphasize how low 0.3 Bq/m3 is, it's only just barely above the detection limit:


Our current detection limit using this method is about 0.1 Bq/m3 for 137Cs and 0.2 Bq/m3 for 134Cs. Values below this are reported as “below detection,”
So 0.2 Bq/m3 is the lowest amount that can be detected for 134Cs and 0.3 is barely above that..




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