FUKUSHIMA: Pacific Ocean Will Not Dilute Dumped Radioactive Water According to Previously-Secret 1955 Government Report: By Washington's Blog Global Research, June 01, 2012 Washington's Blog 1 June 2012 Region: Asia Theme: Environment  3585  127  48    8214 The operator of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant has been dumping something like a thousand tons per day of radioactive water into the Pacific ocean.

Remember, the reactors are “riddled with meltdown holes”, building 4 – with more radiation than all nuclear bombs ever dropped or tested – is missing entire walls, and building 3 is a pile of rubble.

The whole complex is leaking like a sieve, and the rivers of water pumped into the reactors every day are just pouring into the ocean (with only a slight delay).

Most people assume that the ocean will dilute the radiation from Fukushima enough that any radiation reaching the West Coast of the U.S. will be low.

For example, the Congressional Research Service wrote in April:

Scientists have stated that radiation in the ocean very quickly becomes diluted and would not be a problem beyond the coast of Japan.

***

U.S. fisheries are unlikely to be affected because radioactive material that enters the marine environment would be greatly diluted before reaching U.S. fishing grounds.

And a Woods Hole oceanographer said:

“The Kuroshio current is considered like the Gulf Stream of the Pacific, a very large current that can rapidly carry the radioactivity into the interior” of the ocean, Buesseler said.

“But it also dilutes along the way, causing a lot of mixing and decreasing radioactivity as it moves offshore.”

But – just as we noted 2 days after the earthquake hit that the jet stream might carry radiation to the U.S. by wind – we are now warning that ocean currents might carry more radiation to the at least some portions of the West Coast of North America than is assumed.

Specifically, we noted more than a year ago:

The ocean currents head from Japan to the West Coast of the U.S.

As AP notes:

The floating debris will likely be carried by currents off of Japan toward Washington, Oregon and California before turning toward Hawaii and back again toward Asia, circulating in what is known as the North Pacific gyre, said Curt Ebbesmeyer, a Seattle oceanographer who has spent decades tracking flotsam.

***

“All this debris will find a way to reach the West coast or stop in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” a swirling mass of concentrated marine litter in the Pacific Ocean, said Luca Centurioni, a researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego.

Here is what the North Pacific Gyre looks like:



NPR reports:

CNN said that “the Hawaiian islands may get a new and unwelcome addition in coming months — a giant new island of debris floating in from Japan.” It relied in part on work done by the University of Hawaii’s International Pacific Research Center, which predicts that:

“In three years, the [debris] plume will reach the U.S. West Coast, dumping debris on Californian beaches and the beaches of British Columbia, Alaska, and Baja California. The debris will then drift into the famous North Pacific Garbage Patch, where it will wander around and break into smaller and smaller pieces. In five years, Hawaii shores can expect to see another barrage of debris that is stronger and longer lastingthan the first one. Much of the debris leaving the North Pacific Garbage Patch ends up on Hawaii’s reefs and beaches.”

Indeed, CNN notes:

The debris mass, which appears as an island from the air, contains cars, trucks, tractors, boats and entire houses floating in the current heading toward the U.S. and Canada, according to ABC News.

The bulk of the debris will likely not be radioactive, as it was presumably washed out to sea during the initial tsunami – before much radioactivity had leaked. But this shows the power of the currents from Japan to the West Coast.

An animated graphic from the University of Hawaii’s International Pacific Research Center shows the projected dispersion of debris from Japan:



Indeed, an island of Japanese debris the size of California is hitting the West Coast of North America … and some of it is radioactive.

In addition to radioactive debris, MIT says that seawater which is itself radioactive may begin hitting the West Coast within 5 years. Given that the debris is hitting faster than predicted, it is possible that the radioactive seawater will as well.

And the Congressional Research Service admitted:

However, there remains the slight potential for a relatively narrow corridor of highly contaminated water leading away from Japan …

***

Transport by ocean currents is much slower, and additional radiation from this source might eventually also be detected in North Pacific waters under U.S. jurisdiction, even months after its release. Regardless of slow ocean transport, the long half-life of radioactive cesium isotopes means that radioactive contaminants could remain a valid concern for
ears.

Indeed, nuclear expert Robert Alvarez – senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment from 1993 to 1999 – wrote yesterday:

According to a previously secret 1955 memo from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission regarding concerns of the British government over contaminated tuna, “dissipation of radioactive fall-out in ocean waters is not a gradual spreading out of the activity from the region with the highest concentration to uncontaminated regions, but that in all probability the process results in scattered pockets and streams of higher radioactive materials in the Pacific. We can speculate that tuna which now show radioactivity from ingested materials [this is in 1955, not today] have been living, in or have passed through, such pockets; or have been feeding on plant and animal life which has been exposed in those areas.”

Because of the huge amounts of radioactive water Tepco is dumping into the Pacific Ocean, and the fact that the current pushes waters from Japan to the West Coast of North America, at least some of these radioactive “streams” or “hot spots” will likely end up impacting the West Coast.

Japan launches anti-radiation underwear after Fukushima crisis Japanese company launches anti-radiation swimwear and underwear as Fukushima nuclear crisis continues. The wetsuit-style garment, which contains micron-sized bubbles, blocks almost 100 per cent of beta rays, according to its makers Yamamoto Corporation, a swimwear company based in Osaka Photo: Yamamoto Corporation By Danielle Demetriou, Tokyo

10:45AM BST 18 Oct 2013

The new swimwear has been crafted from a unique biorubber material that claims to protect the wearer from radiation exposure in contaminated waters.

The wetsuit-style garment, which contains micron-sized bubbles, blocks almost 100 per cent of beta rays, according to its makers Yamamoto Corporation, a swimwear company based in Osaka.



A further line of anti-radiation underwear made from a lead-based fabric to prevent the contamination of gamma rays is also in development and due to go on sale in the near future.

The underwear, which weighs close to 7.5lb, is designed to protect in particular the spine and lower abdomen of the wearer from the damaging effects of gamma ray exposure.

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The products are clearly targeting high-risk workers in and around the still-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant, which suffered triple meltdowns and hydrogen explosions following a major earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

However, the clothing, which is designed as an additional form of protection alongside conventional anti-radiation gear worn by workers at the plant, is not cheap: the swimwear will sell for Y105,000 (£663) and the underwear for Y80,850 (£511).

Tepco's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant's unit 3 reactor

The timing of the product launch is apt, with Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), operators of the Fukushima nuclear plant, long battling to contain a string of radioactive water leaks at the plant.

The safety of the workers is also increasingly under the spotlight after Japan’s nuclear regulators ordered Tepco to draft in additional workers and take further steps to tackle the problems at the plant.

Last week, further criticism was directed at the plant after an accident occurred during which six workers at the plant were exposed to highly radioactive water.

Endless Fukushima catastrophe: 2020 Olympics under contamination threatDr Helen Caldicott is one of the most articulate and passionate advocates of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises.


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Published time: September 15, 2013 11:06

AFP Photo / TEPCO





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Health, Japan, Natural disasters, Nuclear,Olympics, Politics, Tsunami
As the escape of radiation at Fukushima seems virtually unstoppable, there are still steps that governments all over the world should take to prevent worst case consequences. One of them would be canceling the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Scientific estimates predict that the radioactive plume travelling east across the Pacific will likely hit the shores of Oregon, Washington State and Canada early next year. California will probably be impacted later that year. Because the ongoing flow of water from the reactor site will be virtually impossible to stop, a radioactive plume will continue to migrate across the Pacific affecting Hawaii, North America, South America and eventually Australia for many decades.

We are only talking about ocean currents, however, fish swim thousands of miles and don’t necessarily follow the currents. As noted in Part I, big fish concentrate radiation most efficiently, and tuna have already been caught off the coast of California containing cesium from Fukushima. Seaweed also efficiently concentrates radioactive elements.

As I contemplate the future at Fukushima, it seems that the escape of radiation is virtually unstoppable. The levels of radiation in buildings 1, 2 and 3 are now so high that no human can enter or get close to the molten cores. It will therefore be impossible to remove these cores for hundreds of years if ever.

Buildings 1, 2 & 3If one of these buildings collapses, the targeted flow of cooling water to the pools and cores would cease, the cores would become red hot and possibly ignite releasing massive amounts of radiation into the air and water and the fuel in the cooling pools could ignite. It is strange that neither the US government in particular nor the global community seem to be concerned about these imminent possibilities and exhibit no urge to avert catastrophe.

Similarly the global media is strangely disconnected with the ongoing crisis. Most importantly, the Japanese government until very recently has obstinately refused to invite and collaborate with foreign experts from nuclear engineering companies and/or governments.

Building 4This structure was severely damaged during the initial quake, its walls are bulging, and it sank 31 inches (79cm) into the ground. On the roof sits a cooling pool containing about 250 tons of hot fuel rods, most of which had just been removed from the reactor core days before the earthquake struck. This particular core did not melt because TEPCO was able maintain a continuous flow of cooling water, so the rods and their holding racks are still intact, but geometrically deformed due to the force of the hydrogen explosion.  


The cooling pool contains 8,800 pounds of plutonium plus over 100 other highly radioactive isotopes. Instead of this core melting into a larval mass like the other three cores, it sits exposed to the air atop the shaky building. A large earthquake could disrupt the integrity of the building, causing it to collapse and taking the hot fuel rods with it. The cooling water would evaporate and the intrinsic heat of the radioactive rods would ignite a fire as the zirconium cladding reacted with air, releasing the radioactive equivalent of 14,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs and 10 times more cesium than Chernobyl.



AFP Photo / TEPCO




Not only would the Northern Hemisphere become badly contaminated, but the Japanese government is seriously contemplating evacuating 35 million people from Tokyo should this happen. TEPCO has constructed a steel frame to strengthen the shaky building in order to place a massive crane on the roof so they can extract the hot rods by remote control. This operation is always performed by computer and a remote manually-controlled extraction has never been attempted before. If the rods are deformed, a rod could fracture releasing so much radiation that the workers would have to evacuate or, should they touch each other, a chain reaction could release huge amounts of radiation.

I defer to Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer in whom I have great faith. He says that a 2-meter thick zeolite wall should be constructed some distance from the reactors on the mountainside, which would effectively absorb the cesium from the water surrounding the reactor cores so it could not get out and further pollute the pure water descending from the mountain. At the same time, channels must be constructed to pump and divert the unpolluted mountain water into the sea. Then the three molten cores and their associated buildings could be immersed in concrete as the Soviets did at Chernobyl, and the situation could possibly be neutralized for about 100 years. What our poor descendants will then decide to do with this radioactive rubbish dump is beyond my comprehension.

However, as one Japanese official said, “If we just buried them no one would look at another nuclear plant for years.” An interesting reaction, so it is perfectly obvious that despite the calamity, they still want to pursue the nuclear option.

North America and Canada the EPA should immediately start monitoring the fish routinely caught off the west coast and it must also, as a matter of urgency, establish many effective airborne monitors up and down the west coast and across the US continent, so that if there is another large release of radiation it will be effectively measured and the information rapidly passed on to the public. The same holds true for Canada.

The US and Canadian governments must forthwith ban imported food from Japan, unless each batch is monitored for contamination, and the food grown in the US and Canada needs to be effectively monitored pending another major accident. The US has allowed food measuring up to 1,200 Becquerels per kilo to be sold in the US from Japan, while the Japanese allowable concentration for food is only 100 Becquerels per kilo. What does the US government think it is doing purposely exposing people to radioactive food? This situation must be urgently amended.



An aerial view shows the Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and its contaminated water storage tanks (top) in Fukushima, in this photo taken by Kyodo August 31, 2013.(Reuters / Kyodo)




Nuclear OlympicsGiven these impending problems, how can Japanese Prime Minister Abe possibly say that Tokyo will be safe for the Olympics? He actually said that “there is absolutely no problem” and “the situation is under control.” Does he not understand that parts of Tokyo are already radioactively contaminated and that his government is dumping ashes from the incineration of thousands of tons of radioactive debris from the tsunami and earthquake into Tokyo Bay? Is this what the athletes will be swimming in?

What if there is another major release of radiation before the Olympics? Young fit people who have spent years in rigorous training must, under no circumstances be exposed to radioactive air, food or water. And how can Abe possibly consider spending all that money housing people in expensive accommodation and constructing stadiums etc. when his own people - 160,000 Fukushima refugees - live in shacks and millions still live in highly radioactive zones and when the Fukushima complex is out of control? 


The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.