Once again, testing finds Alaska seafood free of Fukushima radiation via adn.com

For the third consecutive year, tests have found no radioactivity in Alaska seafood stemming from the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, state officials announced Monday.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation said in a statement that seafood samples from Alaska waters in 2016 tested negative for three Fukushima-related radioactive isotopes: iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137. The findings for the tested species — including king, chum, sockeye and pink salmon, as well as halibut, pollock, sablefish, herring and Pacific cod — matched those from 2014 and 2015.

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Department spokeswoman Marlena Brewer said that the samples were tested at DEC’s Environmental Health Laboratory in Anchorage, using portable gamma-ray analysis equipment provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Digital data from that equipment was then sent to an FDA lab in Massachusetts for analysis and full results, under a pilot program first being tested in Alaska.

“The idea is that they wanted to see how this worked out so in the event of another Fukushima-type event, they could deploy these devices out across the country rather than try to get the samples to a central lab,” Brewer said. “We’re pretty excited that we were chosen.”

Although the FDA already analyzes foreign and domestic foods in the U.S. for radioactive isotopes, Brewer said the state has received “a lot of concern from the community” seeking data for seafood in Alaska waters.