Friday, April 25, 2014

Cracks in Collective Denial About Fukushima



First let me thank all you who have offered your thoughts and support regarding my father's ill health. Thank You! The path is hard, but the support has been great.

Now I turn to the recent mass-mediated disclosures concerning the ongoing problems at Fukushima:



I think we have reached a turning point.

Relatively mainstream sources are admitting publicly that the ocean contamination is ongoing because water running through the site is directly encountering melted fuel, as documented recently by Enenews (e.g., see this story).

Some experts, such as Ken Buesseler, are even expressing concerns about rising strontium levels, which are actually spiking and will continue to do so for many, many years. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/02/07/national/record-strontium-90-level-in-fukushima-groundwater-sample-last-july/#.UvVDpoWviSo

Good bye Pacific ocean mammals. I loved you and I'm sorry I could not do more….

Here is my reasoning.

Ken Buesseler said that prior to Fukushima, the Pacific Ocean measured ½ to 2 becquerels (http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/mit-cis/videos/26614-japan-s-continuing-nuclear-nightmare )

I’m confident that some of what was measured in the ocean before Fukushima was also introduced by humans, insanely bent on our collective annihilation.The ocean has been a dump grounds for atomic waste for many years after atmospheric testing was mostly discontinued.

So, the level of 1/2 to 2 becquerels is likely slightly higher than it would be without human nuclear contamination. Now we have Fukushima bleeding radionuclides into the Pacific and Buesseler says the prediction is for 30 becquerels max in the Pacific. 

[ I’m not sure where and I don’t know if that figure is only for cesium, which is what he mostly discusses in his excellent presentation].

Still, a hypothetical fifteen fold increase in radioactivity levels would destroy life across time through the processes of bio-accumulation and bio-magnification.

Takashi Hirose’s wonderful (2011) book, Fukushima Meltdown, drew upon actual radioactivity concentration data from the Columbia River to illustrate bio-accumulation: Assuming a river water concentration of radiation from the Hanford nuclear plant of one, the egg yolk of a water bird living by the river would be 1,000,000 times more concentrated.  (Asahi Shinsho Books, p. 73).

The egg yolk was a million times more concentrated than the river! Concentration was worst at the top of the food chain. 

Bio-magnification is a known problem. Its so well-established that Intel International Science Fair kids study it empirically. When judging last year, I saw projects on lead and arsenic concentration in predator birds in states like Montana, Washington, and Idaho (Amazing kids!).

Keep in mind that the ocean was contaminated early on in the Fukushima disaster by 'wet deposition' as the plume rained out. Remember when Long Beach scientist found Iodine-131 in California kelp in the spring of 2011? It came down in the rain.

I personally think that bio-magnification of radio-cesium and radio-iodine from wet deposition is afflicting California’s sea lion population, which is in precipitous and unprecedented reproductive peril for the second year in a row.   

The ocean plume from water released by the Daiichi plant into the ocean in 2011 is now reaching the North American coast. Plumes of radiation can travel relatively intact across great distances. Great suffering among ocean mammals may be imminent.

Bioaccumulation and biomagnification in fish and sea mammals could be species destroying. I have no idea what the implications are for North American humans.


SOURCES



Lecture by Buesseler. I think it is his best on Fukushima and it is very informative:
http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/mit-cis/videos/26614-japan-s-continuing-nuclear-nightmare

 

Source on Spiking Strontium Levels: Record strontium-90 level in Fukushima groundwater sample last July. (2014, Feb 7), Kyodo/JIJI   
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/02/07/national/record-strontium-90-level-in-fukushima-groundwater-sample-last-july/#.UvVDpoWviSo


Source Data on Radioactive kelp: a high of 40 MBq 131I , or 40,000,000 Bq/kg of Iodine-131 was detected in one bed of Macrocystis pyrifera off the coast of Southern California in the summer of 2011.[i] The researchers of the kelp study described their findings in a local Long Beach media interview:
‘Radioactivity is taken up by the kelp and anything that feeds on the kelp will be exposed to this also,’ [California State University, Long Beach marine biology professors Steven L. Manley] continued. ‘Even though we detected low levels, it still got into the environment and we don’t know anything about the other radioisotopes like Cesium 137, which stays around much longer than iodine. In fact, the values that we reported for iodine probably underestimate what was probably in there. It could be two to three times more because we were just sampling the surface tissue; the biomass estimates were based on canopy tissue and a lot of kelp biomass is underneath. So, probably two or three times more was in the tissue at its height. Then it enters the coastal food web and gets dispersed over a variety of organisms. I would assume it’s there. It’s not a good thing, but whether it actually has a measureable [sic] detrimental effect is beyond my expertise.’[ii]
Kelp is at the bottom of the food chain. The radioisotopes in kelp will biomagnify up the food chain.
[1]        S. Manley and C. Lowe (6 March 2012) ‘Canopy-Forming Kelps as California’s Coastal Dosimeter: 131I from Damaged Japanese Reactor Measured in Macrocystis Pyrifera’, Environmental Science & Technology, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es203598r?journalCode=esthag.



Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Very Strange Steam/Fog Phenomena Fukushima Daiichi


This TEPCO screenshot documents when I began watching. Notice the emissions from the buildings:
 
TBS Cam
 

What really had me concerned was this shot:

The effect lasted for a few minutes, dispersing toward our left


CRIMINAL Negligence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

View more screenshots here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/56yvnvax3vglmch/April%2022%202014.pdf