(NaturalNews) In recent weeks, two new landmarks were crossed in the ongoing, inexorable spread of radioactive material from the 2011 Fukushima disaster toward North America’s west coast.
In November, researchers from the Fukushima InFORM project detected the radioactive isotope Cesium-134 (Cs-134) in Canadian salmon. Then on December 9, researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution detected Cs-134 in seawater samples taken at two beaches in Oregon.
Because Cs-134 has a half life of only two years, any occurrence of the isotope in the environment must have come from Fukushima.
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Worse to come
Scientists say that the radioactivity levels detected do not currently pose risks to health or the environment. The levels of Cs-134 in the seawater were only 0.3 becquerels per cubic meter, while those in the salmon were more than a thousand times lower than those set as a health concern by Health Canada.
These levels are expected to keep increasing, however, as the bulk of the Fukushima plume has yet to reach North America.
“As the contamination plume progresses towards our coast we expect levels closer to shore to increase over the coming year,” said Jay Cullen, who leads Fukushima InFORM.
Data show that the plume is moving toward North America at about twice the speed of a garden snail.
Buesseler does not believe that radioactivity will ever reach dangerous levels at any one spot along the North American coast – unless Fukushima suffers from another disaster. In that case, the information on ocean currents being collected by Our Radioactive Ocean might prove invaluable.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant still contains more than a thousand giant tanks filled with radioactive water, while the failed reactors still contain hundreds of tons of molten fuel. In the worst-case scenario, the fuel would melt through its containment vessels and into the ground, uncontrollably irradiating groundwater that flows into the ocean.
Read more at Radioactive fish from Fukushima nuclear plant found on west coast of US
