Is Fukushima tainting one of Alaska's most valuable resources?

This week, contaminated water leaking from Japan’s still-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant made headlines. 

One of the containment tanks sprang a leak and was spilling tons of hazardous waste water onto the surrounding area, about a football field’s length from the Pacific Ocean.

Now, Japanese officials said, the situation is too big. They need international assistance.

There is speculation the tanks have been leaking, little by little, continuously since the earthquake and subsequent tsunami more than two years ago. It’s never been 100 percent confirmed; many said evidence is as yet inconclusive.

Cellphone users are ‘Guinea Pigs’ developing brain Cancer?

Two recent studies provide fuel for both camps: They both find the association between brain cancer and cell phone use is dubious. Does this mean they found no associations? Hardly.

The debate about whether cell phones cause brain tumors continues as two new studies appear to illustrate that brain cancers do not rise as a result to increased cell phone use – at least until the data is looked at more closely.

In the first of the two – from the University of Oxford's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – followed 791,710 middle aged-women for seven years – after they reported their cell phone use in 1999, 2005 and 2009.

The research discovered 51,680 invasive cancers and 1,261 central nervous system cancers during the period.

Cancer risk linked to radiation levels in fish species after Fukushima

Two and a half years after  Fukushima, many fish species have highly elevated amounts of radioactive cesium from the stricken plant, including species that Japan exports to Canada, according to the Japanese Fisheries Agency’s tests on fish catches.

And Japanese fish and seafood exports to Canada have grown significantly since Fukushima, with $24 million in exports in 2012, up 20 percent from $20 million in 2010, according to Statistics Canada data.

In July this year, a sea bass caught in Japan had 1,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium—10 times Japan’s ceiling of 100 becquerels per kilo in food. It was the second-highest amount found in a sea bass since the disaster occurred.

Radioactive Bluefin Tuna Caught Off California Coast

Every bluefin tuna tested in the waters off California has shown to be contaminated with radiation that originated in Fukushima. Every single one.

Over a year ago, in May of 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported on a Stanford University study. Daniel Madigan, a marine ecologist who led the study, was quoted as saying, “The tuna packaged it up (the radiation) and brought it across the world’s largest ocean. We were definitely surprised to see it at all and even more surprised to see it in every one we measured.”

Another member of the study group, Marine biologist Nicholas Fisher at Stony Brook University in New York State reported, “We found that absolutely every one of them had comparable concentrations of cesium 134 and cesium 137.”

Radioactive Water From Fukushima Is Systematically Poisoning The Entire Pacific Ocean

Right now, a massive amount of highly radioactive water is escaping into the Pacific Ocean from the ruins of the destroyed Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan.  

This has been going on all day, every day for more than two years.  The enormous amounts of tritium, cesium and strontium that are being released are being carried by wind, rain and ocean currents all over the northern Hemisphere.  And of course the west coast of the United States is being hit particularly hard.  When you drink water or eat seafood that has been contaminated with these radioactive particles, they can stick around for a very long time.  Over the coming years, this ongoing disaster could potentially affect the health of millions upon millions of people living in the northern hemisphere, and the sad thing is that a lot of those people will never even know the true cause of their health problems.

For a long time, the Japanese government has been trusting Tepco to handle this crisis, but now it has become abundantly clear that Tepco has no idea what they are doing.  In fact, the flow of radioactive water has gotten so bad that authorities in Japan are now calling it an “emergency”…

Highly radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is creating an “emergency” that the operator is struggling to contain, an official from the country’s nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) task force, told Reuters.

The amount of water that we are talking about is absolutely enormous.  According to Yahoo, 400 metric tons of water is being pumped into the basements of destroyed buildings at Fukushima every single day…

The utility pumps out some 400 metric tons a day of groundwater flowing from the hills above the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the basements of the destroyed buildings, which mixes with highly irradiated water that is used to cool the reactors in a stable state below 100 degrees Celsius.

Tepco is trying to prevent groundwater from reaching the plant by building a “bypass” but recent spikes of radioactive elements in sea water has prompted the utility to reverse months of denials and finally admit that tainted water is reaching the sea.

And of course all of that water has to go somewhere.  For a long time Tepco tried to deny that it was getting into the ocean, but now they are  finally admitting that it is…

Tepco said on Friday that a cumulative 20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium had probably leaked into the sea since the disaster. The company said this was within legal limits.

Tritium is far less harmful than cesium and strontium, which have also been released from the plant. Tepco is scheduled to test strontium levels next.

40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium have gotten into the Pacific Ocean?

And that is what they are publicly admitting.  The reality is probably far worse.

And all of that tritium is going to be around for a very long time.  You see, the truth is that tritium has a half-life of about 12 years.

But strontium is even worse.  Strontium can cause bone cancer and it has a half-life of close to 29 years.

And now Tepco is admitting that extremely dangerous levels of strontium have been escaping from Fukushima and getting into the underground water.  And of course the underground water flows out into the Pacific Ocean…

Tepco said in late June that it had detected the highly toxic strontium-90, a by-product of nuclear fission that can cause bone cancer if ingested, at levels 30 times the permitted rate.

The substances, which were released by the meltdowns of reactors at the plant in the aftermath of the huge tsunami of March 2011, were not absorbed by soil and have made their way into underground water.

Subsoil water usually flows out to sea, meaning these two substances could normally make their way into the ocean, possibly affecting marine life and ultimately impacting humans who eat sea creatures.

Cesium has an even longer half-life than strontium does.  It has a half life of about 30 years, and according to samples that were taken about a month ago levels of cesium at Fukushima have been spiking dramatically…

Samples taken on Monday showed levels of possibly cancer-causing caesium-134 were more than 90 times higher than they were on Friday, at 9000 becquerels per litre, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) revealed.

Levels of caesium-137 stood at 18 000 becquerels per litre, 86 times higher than at the end of last week, the utility said.

“We still don’t know why the level of radiation surged, but we are continuing efforts to avert further expansion of contamination,” a Tepco spokesperson stated.

When cesium gets into your body, it can do a tremendous amount of damage.  The following is an excerpt from a NewScientist article that described what happens when cesium and iodine enter the human body…

Moreover the human body absorbs iodine and caesium readily. “Essentially all the iodine or caesium inhaled or swallowed crosses into the blood,” says Keith Baverstock, former head of radiation protection for the World Health Organization’s European office, who has studied Chernobyl’s health effects.

Iodine is rapidly absorbed by the thyroid, and leaves only as it decays radioactively, with a half-life of eight days. Caesium is absorbed by muscles, where its half-life of 30 years means that it remains until it is excreted by the body. It takes between 10 and 100 days to excrete half of what has been consumed.

And it is important to keep in mind that it has been estimated that each spent fuel pool at the Fukushima nuclear complex could have 24,000 times the amount of cesium that was produced by the nuclear bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War 2.

Overall, the Fukushima nuclear facility originally contained a whopping 1760 tons of nuclear material.

That is a massive amount of nuclear material.  Chernobyl only contained 180 tons.

And of course the crisis at Fukushima could be made even worse at any moment by a major earthquake.  In fact, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit northern Japan on Sunday.

This is a nightmare that has no end.  Every single day, massive amounts of highly radioactive water from Fukushima is systematically poisoning the entire Pacific Ocean.  The damage that is being done is absolutely incalculable.

Please share this article with as many people as you can.  The mainstream media does not seem to want to talk about this, but it is a matter that is extremely important to every man, woman and child living in the northern hemisphere of our planet.

Michael T. Snyder


Related:
Holy Fukushima – Radiation From Japan Is Already Killing North Americans
Fukushima’s Catastrophic Aftermath: The Dangers of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation
Radioactive cesium level soars 90-fold at Fukushima in just 3 days
2 years after nuclear disaster, Japan spawns freaky fruits and veggies

Radioactive cesium level soars 90-fold at Fukushima in just 3 days

Levels of radioactive cesium-134 in a well at Fukushima nuclear power plant are up to 90 times higher than just three days ago, and may spread into the Pacific Ocean. 

Meanwhile, 10 applications to restart reactors under stricter rules have been received.

TEPCO, the company that operated the plant and is now in charge of the cleanup and decommissioning, said that cesium-134 levels in the well water were at 9,000 becquerels per liter, 150 times the legal level. While cesium-137 measured 18,000 becquerels, 200 times the permitted level.

Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years and the readings were some 85 times higher than they had been three days earlier.

These are the highest cesium levels found since the March 2011 disaster.

“It is unclear whether the radioactive water is leaking into the sea. After gathering needed data, we will conduct analyses,” a TEPCO official told the Japanese media.

Although the total levels of cesium collected on July 8 were far higher than those collected just three days earlier on July 5, levels of other radioactive materials, such as strontium, remained the same as three days ago.

“We do not know why only cesium levels have risen,” a TEPCO spokesman said.

The latest findings, just 25 meters from the Pacific Ocean, were made just a month after TEPCO detected cesium in the groundwater flowing from high ground fairly far from the sea into its destroyed plant.

The spike, along with discoveries of other radioactive elements like Tritium and Strontium, suggest that contaminated water is spreading towards the sea from the reactors, which are on higher ground.

It was reported in June that very high levels of strontium 90 were found in groundwater near the stricken plant, but TEPCO officials insisted that it had not leaked into the nearby ocean.

Engineers have been flushing water over the reactors for more than two years to keep them cool, but contaminated water has been building up at the rate of an Olympic sized swimming pool every week and TEPCO is running out of space to store it.

It has applied to channel groundwater, which it says has low levels of radioactive contamination, around the plant and into the sea. Local fishermen have opposed the proposal.

The findings in one of four wells dug by TEPCO at Fukushima since May 24, 2013, come just days after new safety rules came into force designed to avoid a repeat of the disaster and allow Japan to restart it nuclear power stations.

At present only two of Japan’s 50 reactors are connected to the grid, but the government is forging ahead with plans to reopen them, in the face of a skeptical public and rising imported fossil fuel bills to run conventional power stations.

“Some of the units are projected to [restart] one year from now, though I don’t know how many,” Kenzo Oshima a commissioner at Japan’s Nuclear Radiation Authority, told Reuters.


RT

Fukushima’s Catastrophic Aftermath: The Dangers of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation

In her book titled “No Immediate Danger: Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth,” nuclear power/environmental health expert Rosalie Bertell (1929 – 2012) said:

“Should the public discover the true health cost(s) of nuclear pollution, a cry would rise from all parts of the world and people would refuse to cooperate passively with their own death.”

In her article titled “Radioactivity: No Immediate Danger,” she coined a new word. “Omnicide” describes the ultimate human rejection of life. It’s “difficult to comprehend,” but it’s happening, she said.

She called industrial radioactive pollution “cumulatively greater than Chernobyl. We are now in a no-win situation with radioactive materials, where (it’s) acceptable to have cancer deaths, deformed children and miscarriages.”

Industry propaganda falsely claims nuclear power is clean and green. The nuclear fuel cycle discharges significant amounts of greenhouse gases.

It’s also responsible for hundreds of thousands of curies of deadly radioactive gases and elements in the environment annually.

“Claiming nuclear production of energy is ‘clean,’ ” said Bertell, “is like dieting but stuffing yourself with food between meals.”

Separately, she said:

“There is no such thing as a radiation exposure that will not do damage. There is a hundred per cent possibility that there will be damage to cells. The next question is: which damage do you care about?”

All toxic hazards are serious, she explained. Nuclear radiation is worst of all. It threatens all human life. “Our present path is headed toward species death – whether fast with nuclear war or technological disaster, or slow, by poison.”

Global suicide is certain. Continued nuclear proliferation and Fukushima accelerated it.

March 11 marked its second anniversary. It’s perhaps the worst ever environmental disaster. Reliable experts call large parts of Japan unsafe. They’re too hazardous to live in.

According to Professor Hiroaki Koide, Tokyo’s as contaminated as Fukushima. Thousands of city residents protested. They oppose nuclear power. They want safe energy sources replacing it.

Radiation contamination is widespread. East Asia, North America, Europe and other areas are affected.

Hazardous air, water and land readings across many areas globally are many multiples too high. Future epidemic cancer levels are certain. It occurs when body cells divide and spread uncontrollably. If untreated, it metastasizes and kills.

Michel Chossudovsky calls Fukushima “a nuclear war without a war.” It’s an “unspoken crisis of worldwide nuclear contamination.”

Tens of thousands of children have confirmed thyroid abnormalities. They reflect the tip of the iceberg. Children are especially vulnerable. No radiation dose is safe.

Karl Grossman wants planet earth made a “nuclear free zone.” We barely made it through the last century without a “major nuclear weapons exchange,” he said.

Nuclear energy in all forms is unsafe. Safe, clean, renewable solar, wind, geothermal, and other energy sources are readily available.

Admiral Hyman Rickover (1900 – 1986) was the father of America’s nuclear navy. In January 1982, he told a congressional committee that until a few billion years ago, “it was impossible to have any life on earth.”

“There was so much radiation on earth you couldn’t have any life, fish or anything.” Gradually the amount subsided. “Now, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible.”

“Every time you produce radiation, (a) horrible force” is unleashed. “In some cases (it’s) for billions of years, and I think the human race is going to wreck itself.”

“I am talking about humanity. The most important thing we could do is start having an international meeting where we first outlaw nuclear weapons to start off with. Then we outlaw nuclear reactors, too.”

“The lesson for history is when a war starts, every nation will ultimately use whatever weapons are available. That is the lesson learned time and again.” ”

“Therefore, we must expect, if another war, a serious war breaks out, we will use nuclear energy in some form. We will probably destroy ourselves.” Widespread contamination acts in slow motion.

Disturbing reports explain. In early April, around 120 tons of contaminated water leaked from Fukushima’s No. 1′s underground storage tank. It contained an estimated 710 billion becquerels of radioactivity.

Water around the affected tank is highly radioactive. It’s about 800 meters from the Pacific. Government and Tokyo Electric (Tepco) claimed it won’t likely reach it. Numerous previous reports suggest otherwise.

Tepco general manager Masayuki Ono said “(w)e cannot deny the fact that our faith in the underwater tanks is being lost.”

In November 2012, Nature.com headlined “Ocean still suffering from Fukushima fallout,” saying:

“Radioactivity is persisting in the ocean waters close to Japan’s ruined nuclear power plant at Fukushima Daiichi.”

New data show high contamination levels. “The Fukushima disaster caused by far the largest discharge of radioactivity into the ocean ever seen.”

Radiation levels aren’t dropping. “The implications are serious for the fishing industry.”

On December 26, CleanEnergy.org headlined “Japan Continues Struggle with Aftermath from the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster,” saying:

“….an estimated 160,000 (Japanese) citizens still have not returned home. Reports of illness in humans and livestock continue to underscore the far reaching and difficult to predict impacts that a nuclear accident can cause.”

In July 2012, 36% of Japanese children screened had abnormal thyroid growths. Months later an illness called the “Fukushima syndrome” was killing cattle throughout Fukushima Prefecture.

Mutations were found in butterflies and other insects. Their shorter life cycles allow genetic disruptions to show up sooner than in humans or other mammals.

On April 11, Bloomberg.com headlined “Tepco Faces Decision to Dump Radioactive Water in Pacific,” saying:

“Leaks were found in three of seven pits in the past week….” Options for moving contaminated water are limited.

“With Japan’s rainy season approaching, contaminated water levels are likely to increase…”

“Yesterday, Tepco reported another leak of radiated water, this time from a pipe.”

“Pacific bluefin tuna caught off San Diego in August 2011 was found to contain radioactive cesium 10 times higher than fish seized in previous years….” Perhaps its much higher now.

On April 15, Science Daily headlined “The Fukushima Dai-Ichi Power Plant Accident: Two Years On, the Fallout Continues,” saying:

“….(S)cientists are still trying to quantify the extent of the damage.” Most important is “determining just how much hazardous material escaped into the atmosphere….”

Japan Atomic Energy Agency researchers now say previously estimated “137C and 131l” release rates were too low.

On March 11, 2013, nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen said “(t)here’s definitely a large crack, perhaps five inches in diameter, in Fukushima reactor 2.”

Containment is sorely lacking. Pacific Ocean leakage continues.

On April 24, Natural News headlined “Massive, uncontained leak at Fukushima is pouring over 710 billion becquerels of radioactive materials into atmosphere,” saying:

It’s the largest ever plant leakage. Fukushima’s disaster never ends. It “keeps on giving.”

“(N)ew reports indicate that a wealth of new radioactive materials have been spewed into the atmosphere.”

It’s spreading globally. Nuclear radiation is forever. It doesn’t dissipate or disappear. No safe level exists. Every dose is an overdose. Bertell was right. “Omnicide” threatens everyone.


Stephen Lendman

lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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http://www.dailycensored.com/fukushimas-catastrophic-aftermath-continues