via arstechnica.com / March 8, 2016 / The Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred almost five years ago in March 2011. It is the largest event of its sort since Chernobyl, which occurred 25 years earlier. The accident was triggered by a tsunami and earthquake that led to a meltdown at the plant. During this event, large amounts of radioactive materials were released into the atmosphere. Since then, Fukushima Daiichi has continued to leak radioactive materials … Continue reading →
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via bloomberg.com / May 15, 2015 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. should consider discharging water contaminated by the Fukushima Daiichi reactor meltdowns into the Pacific Ocean, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. More than four years after the nuclear power-plant disaster in Japan, the United Nations agency renewed pressure for an alternative to holding the tainted water in tanks and offered to help monitor for offshore radiation. “The IAEA team … Continue reading →
Continue readingIn case you’re interested. A brief explanation of how seawater samples to monitor for Fukushima contamination are processed when they arrive at the University of Victoria. More details about sample analysis can be found at our partner organization’s website Our Radioactive Ocean. The project website is http://fukushimainform.ca. source: Daily Kos
Continue readingvia channelnewsasia.com / February 25, 2015 / The operator of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant said on Tuesday it had found a pool of highly contaminated water on the roof of a plant building and that it had probably leaked into the sea through a gutter when it rained. The finding comes four years after a massive earthquake and tsunami caused meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc’s Fukushima … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca / A paper published in December 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) details the arrival and concentration of radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima nuclear reactor in the North Pacific Ocean. This paper, by Fisheries and Oceans scientist Dr. John Smith, documents the first and only systematic study of its kind validating ocean circulation models while tracking the eastward movement of radioactive isotopes. On … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia WHOI.edu / November 10, 2014 / Monitoring efforts along the Pacific Coast of the U.S. and Canada have detected the presence of small amounts of radioactivity from the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident 100 miles (150 km) due west of Eureka, California. Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found the trace amounts of telltale radioactive compounds as part of their ongoing monitoring of natural and … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Eiji Noyori and Hiroyuki Oyama / the-japan-times.com / September 11, 2014 / Three and a half years after the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, efforts to contain water contaminated with radioactive substances at the plant are at a crossroads. Resolving the radioactive water issue is the first hurdle toward decommissioning the plant. However, despite the time that has passed since the beginning … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia phys.org / September 3, 2014 / It was raining when Eric Norman, Berkeley Lab physicist and University of California (UC) Berkeley professor of Nuclear Engineering, heard about the nuclear-reactor meltdown in Fukushima, Japan. “I immediately thought of Chernobyl,” he says, referring to the “nuclear rain” that fell in the days that followed the 1986 disaster in Ukraine. Norman wanted to know if, following the March 11, 2011 Fukushima breach, radioactivity … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia fukushimainform.com / August 18, 2014 / This diary is part of an ongoing series here that aims to report measurements of Fukushima derived radionuclides in the North Pacific Ocean to help determine the likely impact on ecosystem and public health in western North America. The purpose of this diary is to report the results of a recently published study by Kumamoto and colleagues in the open-access journal Scientific Reports. … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia fukushimainform.com / August 10th, 2014 / In addition to the citizen scientist sampling network that is under construction the other pillar of the InFORM project is the collection of samples in the open North Pacific and Arctic Oceans. The first samples for radionuclide analyses were collected by University of Victoria undergraduate student Kathryn Purdon on the first leg of the icebreaker CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s annual operations in Canada’s … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia channelnewsaisa.com / August 7, 2o14 / The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant on Thursday (Aug 7) unveiled a plan to dump scrubbed water directly into the ocean, sparking concerns over whether it would be properly decontaminated. The plan, which still needs approval from the nuclear agency and local residents, comes as workers are locked in a daily struggle to safely store radioactive water used to cool reactors … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy CHIKAKO KAWAHARA / Asahi Shimbun / July 3, 2014 / Concentrations of radioactive cesium on the seafloor after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster were discovered to be higher in muddy depressions than on the rocky seabed, maritime researchers said. “We are learning that the nuclear accident didn’t contaminate the entire ocean, but created spots that tend to have higher radioactive levels than others,” said Blair Thornton, a researcher from … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / June 25, 2014 / The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has found that radioactive water can now easily spread in a deep layer of groundwater. It says it will speed up construction work on a barrier aimed at preventing contaminated water from leaking into the ocean. The deep layer of water is about 25 meters below the surface. Water there was found to be … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Daily Kos / June 6, 2014 / The lecture shown below is a great resource that summarizes the most recent results from a crowd-funded program Our Radioactive Ocean dedicated to monitoring Fukushima sourced radionuclides off the US and Canadian Pacific coasts and measurements made by the international scientific community in the Pacific. Probable impacts of the Fukushima disaster on the health of the North Pacific ecosystem and human inhabitants … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / May 28, 2014 / Water sampled from a well at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has been found to contain levels of radioactive tritium that exceeds the limit for dumping it into the Pacific, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. The discovery was the first report of over the limit tritium in groundwater at the wells since Tepco began discharging water into the ocean … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Justin McCurry / theguardian.com / May 21, 2014 / The operator of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has started pumping groundwater into the Pacific ocean in an attempt to manage the large volume of contaminated water at the site. Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said it had released 560 tonnes of groundwater pumped from 12 wells located upstream from the damaged reactors. The water had been temporarily stored … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / May 14, 2014 / The government and the operator of a damaged Fukushima nuclear plant are expected to start next week releasing into the sea ground water pumped up at the plant. Officials of the government and Tokyo Electric Power Company say 2 surveys of groundwater show radiation levels of the water are below TEPCO’s safety target, which is lower than the government-set standard, at the … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia CBS L.A. / May 7 2014 / The West Coast shoreline shows no signs of ocean-borne radiation from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, scientists said Wednesday. KNX 1070′s Tom Reopelle reports researchers from CSU Long Beach and other schools are sampling kelp along the California coastline to determine whether seawater arriving from Japan poses any public health threat. The Kelp Watch 2014 project – which is co-headed by … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Japan Times / April 12, 2014 / Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday that toxic water found to have leaked last August at one of the huge tanks at the accident-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was far more contaminated than initially announced. After recalculating the radiation level, Tepco said the water contained 280 million becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting radioactive materials such as strontium-90, instead of … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Kevin Griffin / Vancouver Sun / April 12, 2014 / All along the Pacific coast of North America and as far south as Costa Rica, people with little or no scientific background have volunteered to raise money for the program and collect the sea water samples needed to test for radiation. The crowdsourcing, citizen-scientist program is the idea of Ken Buesseler, a research scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, … Continue reading →
Continue readingfrom NHK World / April 8, 2014 / The government and Tokyo Electric Power Company will begin pumping up groundwater at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Wednesday. The water is expected to be released into the sea next month. This will mark the start of one of several key measures to reduce the increasing volume of radiation-contaminated water at the facility. According to the plan, clean groundwater that … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia The Asahi Shimbun / March 25, 2014 / Fishermen here have given the go-ahead for Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s bypass plan to release uncontaminated groundwater into the sea by diverting it before it reaches the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations confirmed its approval when the heads of its member associations met in the city of Iwaki on March 25. … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia NHK World / March 24, 2014 / The government and Tokyo Electric Power Company — the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, are considering releasing groundwater into the sea, bypassing the facility, as a main measure to reduce the volume of contaminated wastewater. About 400 tons of groundwater flow into the reactor buildings every day. The groundwater becomes contaminated when it mixes with water used to cool … Continue reading →
Continue readingBy Jeff Barnard / via adn.com / March 14, 2014 / Scientists have crowd-sourced a network of volunteers taking water samples at beaches along the West Coast in hopes of capturing a detailed look at low levels of radiation drifting across the ocean since the 2011 tsunami that devastated a nuclear power plant in Japan. With the risk to public health extremely low, the effort is more about perfecting computer … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia CBC.ca / February 26, 2014 / People along the British Columbia coast are being asked to step in where governments in Canada and the U.S. have not — to measure radiation from Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in B.C.’s ocean waters. Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass., are calling on the public to collect data from B.C.’s oceans for a crowd-funded research project. The website … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia natureworldnews.com / February 25, 2014 / Three news items released Tuesday regarding the public health effects of radiation in the atmosphere as a result of the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear incident do little to lessen confusion surrounding the issue, but all point to intense radiation monitoring efforts happening on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. A meeting of the American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Science section revealed Tuesday that low … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Diane Barnes / NTI.org / February 14, 2014 / The U.N. nuclear watchdog urged Japan to weigh dumping radioactive water from its Fukushima plant to help control the fluid’s “enormous” quantity. Japan should consider “all options” to manage radiation-tainted fluid from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, “including the possible resumption of controlled discharges to the sea,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report prepared at Japan’s request … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Our Radioactive Ocean / January 28, 2014 /The first results from seawater samples come from La Jolla and Point Reyes, Calif., and Grayland and Squium, Wash. Four samples from these three locations show no detectable Fukushima cesium. We know this because Fukushima released equal amounts of two isotopes of cesium: the shorter-lived cesium-134 isotope (half-life of 2 years) and the longer-lived cesium-137 (half-life of 30 years). Cesium-137 was found … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Daily Kos / January 27, 2014 / There have been a number of diaries over the last few months about the contamination of the Pacific Ocean by huge and ever increasing releases from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster site. I have written about the ramped-up PR effort to minimize the possible impact of those releases as the waterborne plumes begin to reach the western coasts of North America. As part … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia ENEnews.com / January 25, 2014 / Alaska Marine Science Symposium (pdf), Jan. 20-24, 2014 (emphasis added): 2011 Fukushima Fall Out: Aerial Deposition On To Sea Ice Scenario And Wildlife Health Implications To Ice-Associated Seals (Dr. Doug Dasher, John Kelley, Gay Sheffield, Raphaela Stimmelmayr) — On March 11, 2011 off Japan’s west coast, an earthquake-generated tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant resulting in a major nuclear accident that … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Alaska Dispatch / January 22, 2014 / Since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, I’ve been trying to find Zen with the the ongoing Fukushima nuclear mess. Between colossal tax cuts for oil companies, a budget forecast that induces acid reflux, and Medicaid un-expansion, I barely had the brainspace to worry whether my dad’s smoked sockeye was going to give me colon cancer or turn me into a … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia tos.org / EARLY ONLINE RELEASE | Posted January 5, 2014 2014, Oceanography 27(1), http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.02 Fukushima and Ocean Radioactivity Author | Abstract | Full Article | Citation | References Author Ken O. Buesseler | Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA Top Abstract The triple disaster of the March 11, 2011, earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent radiation releases from Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant were … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia OurRadioactiveOcean.org The world’s oceans contain many of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes, as well as the remnants of nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 60s. Starting in 2011, fallout, runoff, and continued leaks from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant added to this baseline and sparked fears of wide-ranging impacts to the marine ecosystem and human health. Despite concerns, there is no U.S. government agency monitoring the spread of … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Daily Kos / January 15, 2014 / The purpose of this diary is to compare the concentrations of Sr-90 and Cs-137 in the North Pacific Ocean over the last 50 years to the concentrations predicted to arrive on the west coast associated with waters affected by release of radionculides from the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Given present levels that are being measured in the eastern Pacific and barring release … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Sarah Lazare / CommonDreams.org / January 13, 2014 / A fish with 124 times the level of radiation deemed safe for food consumption was caught near the ravaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. The government-affiliated Fisheries Research Agency announced Friday that a captured black sea bream fish had 12,400 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium, a drastic leap from the maximum of 100 allowed in food, The Asahi … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Safecast.org / January 11, 2014 / Let’s make it clear: the release of radioactive contamination from the Fukushima NPP to the environment — the air, the land, and the ocean — is a massive disaster. There’s no other way to describe it. Radiation in the air spread far and wide, and was even detectable, though barely, on other continents, while radiation in the ocean is spreading more slowly but … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia DeepSeaNews.com / January 8, 2014 / With all the misinformation around the internet here are links to articles that we trust. The following provides credible information about what is actually occurring and/or dispel myths about Fukushima radiation that are prevalent on the internet. I will not link to pseudoscience, misinformation, or outright lies in this post or allow them in the comments below. These posts and ideas have received … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia DailyKos / January 4, 2014 / There have been a number of popular press articles that have summarized the results of this program as reported in a presentation at the PICES – North Pacific Marine Sciences Consortium meeting held in Nanaimo, BC Canada in October 2013. Most of these report the timing of the arrival of the radionuclides but offer no perspective on the actual levels and the associated … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Mark Noack / Half Moon Bay Review / January 3, 2014 An amateur video of a Geiger counter showing what appear to be high radiation levels at a Coastside beach has drawn the attention of local, state and federal public health officials. Since being posted last week, the short video has galvanized public concerns that radioactive material could be landing on the local coastline after traveling from Japan as … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia WND.com / written by Steve Elwart / Much has been said about the Fukushima nuclear power-plant disaster, much of it true, some untrue. The problem with the news coming out of the troubled complex is that the operating company TEPCO, the Japanese government and international agencies are not being completely forthcoming. Some call it political spin, but others just say the world is being told lies. The epitome of … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Chris Mah / via Deep Sea News / December 30, 2013 / This post is authored by Chris Mah, a Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History researcher. Chris is one of the world’s leading experts on starfish and echinoderms in general. He created and writes for Echinoblog, a one stop reading place for everything echinoderm. You can find him at Twitter @echinoblog. I broke the story about a … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia RT.com / December 25, 2013 / Due to radiation fears, Fukushima Prefecture fishermen have to dump most of their catch. Two years into the nuclear disaster, the world is growing weary of Japan’s seafood, with South Korea even banning Japanese fish and seafood imports. Fish has traditionally not only been an integral part of Japanese food culture, but also one of its prized exports. In 2011, before the Fukushima … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Yomiuri Shimbun / December 17, 2013 / It is imperative to speed up efforts to contain contaminated water at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. A government panel on measures to dispose of contaminated water at the crippled nuclear complex has compiled a set of additional steps aimed at reducing radioactive water collecting there and preventing the water from leaking into the environment. The source … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Asahi Shimbun / December 13, 2013 / A record 1.8 million becquerels of beta-ray sources per liter of water were detected at a monitoring well at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Dec. 13. The reading concerns strontium and other beta-ray sources. The water was sampled at a monitoring well in an area close to the sea near the No. 2 … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia Associated Press / December 3, 2013 / A government panel proposed additional measures to lessen the radioactive water crisis at Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant, saying Tuesday that current plans are not enough to prevent the risk of a disaster. Officials on the Industry Ministry’s contaminated water panel also said that the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant could run out of storage space for contaminated water within two years if current … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Washington’s Blog / December 1, 2013 / “[The Odds of] Longer Term Chronic Effects, Cancer Or Genetic Effects … Cannot Be Said To Be Zero” It is very difficult to obtain accurate information on the dangers from Fukushima radiation to residents of the West Coast of North America and Hawaii. On the one hand, there is fear-mongering and “we’re all going to die” type hysteria. On the one hand, … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia ABC.net.au / November 29, 2013 / Typhoons that hit Japan each year are contributing to the spread of radioactive material from the Fukushima nuclear disaster into the country’s waterways, researchers say. A joint study by France’s Climate and Environmental Science laboratory (LSCE) and Tsukuba University in Japan shows contaminated soil gets washed away by the high winds and rain and deposited in streams and rivers. “There is a definite … Continue reading →
Continue readingby Jay T. Cullen / TimesColonist.com / November 21, 2013 / Since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster on March 11, 2011, there are many reports of the potential impact of radioactivity from Fukushima causing harm to sea life and people on the West Coast of North America. But radioactivity from Japan poses no danger and little risk to us on the West Coast. A commonly used unit to measure radioactivity is … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia ex-SKF / October 21, 2013 / The ex-McKinsey management consultant never ceases to entertain (albeit in a bad way). The last I heard Mr. Toshimitsu Motegi was when he said there would be more space to install storage tanks for contaminated water once Reactors 5 and 6 at Fukushima I NPP were decommissioned, casting doubt about his intelligence level. He was also pontificating over the talk between TEPCO and … Continue reading →
Continue readingvia News on Japan / Sep 26, 2013 / The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says underwater barriers in the facility’s port have been breached. The so-called silt fences are intended to prevent the spread of radioactive materials. Tokyo Electric Power Company officials said on Thursday they found damage in the curtain-like barriers near the intake canals of the No. 5 and 6 reactors. The silt fences … Continue reading →
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