NUCLEAR CONCERNS: Radiation? Just take your antioxidants and it will be fine.

I almost gagged when I listened to a Tom Young interview with some "expert" from Sudbury, Ontario ... the toxic "moon scape" of the earth. Don't worry, he said ,there are so many toxins in the earth and air that it won't help to worry. Just "take your antioxidants", he said!

More and more I am hearing folks soft pedal the nuclear accident in Japan, attempting to leave the impression that it couldn't happen here at the Point Lepreau reactor. Check the record folks, we have never been that smart and Point Lepreau has edged up to the brink a few times during its history.

In Japan it gets worse and worse. Now they have found not only levels of iodine-131 that are almost 5,000 times the acceptable levels, but now cesium-137 has been found at a village in levels exceeding that used in Chernobyl to justify abandonment of the area for centuries into the future. Trust me this stuff doesn't go away in a few weeks.

It must be "Hell on Earth" ... Kyodo also reported Thursday that the bodies of hundreds of people killed by the quake and tsunami lay unburied near the plant because they were contaminated by radiation, and the police and morgue workers were unable to handle them safely.

Read what else the New York Times has to say:

Radioactive Iodine Detected in Ocean, Despite Gains at Japanese Plant

Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

Nagashima Rio, who was born on March 15, was tested Thursday for nuclear radiation at an evacuation center about 70 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

By DAVID JOLLY

Published: March 31, 2011

The death toll from the earthquake and tsunami that crippled the plant three weeks ago rose to nearly 11,600, with more than 16,000 people listed as missing. Hundreds of thousands of people are still homeless, including tens of thousands who have been displaced from the area around the nuclear plant. Workers have been dousing the reactors and spent fuel pools at the Fukushima Daiichi plant with water to prevent meltdowns and frantically trying to restore power and restart the cooling systems, but the resulting floods of dangerously contaminated water have complicated the efforts.TOKYO — Workers made incremental progress at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Thursday, but disturbingly high radiation readings there as well as miles away continued to reinforce fears that Japan’s crisis was far from over.

Workers prepared more tanks on Thursday to transfer radioactive water from the turbine buildings at Reactor Nos. 1, 2 and 3 to keep it from flowing into the ocean. But readings taken in the sea near

ISSUES: Nuclear Radiation ... you can't see it, smell it or taste it ... why worry?

It's true. You generally can't see, taste, or smell nuclear radiation and folks really, really don't seem to worry about it.

See what it looks like and understand that some forms of radiation can penetrate your body with harmful impacts. And it can kill!!

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RADIATION: Ocean Radiation Soars To 7.5 Million Times Legal Limit

It's happening that quickly and includes cesium as well as iodine-131!  The risks are way to high to be locating reactors by the ocean. Point Lepreau is another total disaster waiting to happen. 

Art

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Japan Increases Fishing Restrictions, As Ocean Radiation Soars To 7.5 Million Times Legal Limit


Gus Lubin | Apr. 5, 2011, 5:58 AM in




Image: wikimedia commons

A fish was caught on Friday midway between Fukushima and Tokyo that contained dangerously high levels of radioactive iodine and high levels of cesium.



This catch has prompted Japan to announce its first legal limits for radiation in fish, according to the AP. Previously Japan had said it was enough to ban fishing in the near proximity of the nuclear plant.


Japan also just announced a huge surge in ocean contamination, as radioactive iodine-131 at 7.5 million times the legal limit was found near the plant, according to Japan Times. Yesterday, levels were only 5 million times the legal limit.


Ocean contamination will probably get worse. Yesterday TEPCO commenced a plan to dump 11,500 tons of radioactive water into the ocean, and it said a leak of even more toxic water could last for months.


Japan, like the Gulf of Mexico during the oil spill, faces a serious economic blow if its fishing industry dries up.
A Complete Guide To Japan's $200 Disaster And How It Will Affect The Global Economy >
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RADIATION: Could a nuclear accident impact local fisheries in the Bay of Fundy?

Well to get some idea, the Japanese reactors are dumping radioactive water into the Pacific, an open-ocean area, unlike our enclosed Bay. We should all watch this closely.

I must admit, I become somewhat sceptacle when the fox in the hen house says the fish over there have "acceptable" levels of I-131 and particularly radioactive cesium.

Oh by the way. "The Powers" reduced our sampling sites to only 3 ... 2 near the Point Lepreau reactor and one at Digby for air-borne emissions. Not sufficient! More on that later.

Art
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More radioactive water released into the sea; fishers seek help

JAPAN 
Tuesday, April 05, 2011, 15:00 (GMT + 9)

Fishers in Fukushima Prefecture are asking the government to solve the problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant and to prevent rumors by providing the public with accurate information. Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has begun pouring 10,000 tonnes of low-radioactive wastewater into the sea.

After hearing confirmation on Saturday that radioactive water was leaking into surrounding waters from the No 1 nuclear reactor, the fishers reiterated that rumors about all the seawater being contaminated could impair their livelihoods.

Head of the Soma-Futaba fishery association in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, Fusayuki Nambu urged the government to release full details on the situation.

"We don't know what damage the radiation leak might cause, because assessment surveys haven't been conducted,” he stressed, reports The Yomiuri Shimbun. “This could give rise to dangerous rumors if people get the impression that all the seawater near Fukushima [Prefecture] is contaminated."

This weekend, three fishery associations in south-central Ibaraki Prefecture -- Oaraimachi, Kashimanada and Hasaki -- issued a statement assuring that the waters of southern Kashimanada are safe. They noted that radiation

RADIATION: Lepreau monitor picks up radioactivity from Japan

Published Saturday April 2nd, 2011
Nuclear: No health hazard to Canadians from infinitesimal amounts, watchdog says
A5
Ian MacLeod
Postmedia News

OTTAWA - Radiation monitors in Ontario, New Brunswick and British Columbia have detected minute traces of radioactive iodine suspected to be from Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission characterizes the quantities of Iodine-131 (I-131) as infinitesimal and stresses there are no health hazards to Canadians.

Bruce Power, operator of the Bruce nuclear generating station on the shores of Lake Huron northwest of Toronto, recently reported traces of airborne I-131 in a small number of monitoring samples.

"It has been concluded that this I-131 is likely due to the result of emissions of I-131 from the Fukushima plant in Japan," the commission said in a news release.

I-131 is produced by the fission of uranium atoms in nuclear reactors and by plutonium (or uranium) in the detonation of nuclear weapons.

Analysis of the Bruce Power samples, taken in mid- to late-March, indicate the effective dose to a person would be approximately 0.03 of a microsievert if a person breathed in this concentration of air, and was exposed externally to this air for an entire month, said the commission. And that does not take into account the radioactive decay that would occur during that time. I-131 has a half-life of eight days.

A sievert measures the biological effect of radiation absorbed. A microsievert is one-millionth of a sievert. A millisievert is one one-thousandth.

On average, Canadians receive about 2.7 millisieverts of ionizing radiation from natural sources in a year.

By comparison, the I-131 detected by Bruce Power corresponds to 0.003 per cent of the CNSC's effective dose limit of one millisievert per year to a member of the public and is an even smaller percentage of the total effective dose from all sources of radiation to which Canadians are exposed.

"The presence of these concentrations of I-131 in the air will not produce harmful effects to the health of Canadians," the commission said.

NB Power, operator of the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station, recently detected even smaller amounts of I-131. Researchers at Simon Fraser University also report finding trace amounts in seaweed and rainwater around Vancouver.

Health Canada sets the safe maximum annual exposure for nuclear workers at 50 millisieverts, 100,000 times the level of Japanese radiation monitored in British Columbia, for example. To put this in perspective, you'll get 0.0001 millisieverts just from eating a banana, about the same as walking through an airport security scanner. And you'd have to walk through 1,000 airport security scans to equal your average chest X-ray.

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RADIATION: Another "couldn't happen" happens in BC

Some may remember my posts about iodine-131 in dulse in the Bay of Fundy. Four points: 1. It can and probably has happened here in NB. 2. The "half-life" is the time (8days) it takes to lose half its radioactivity. BUT it takes another 8 days to lose half of the remaining half and so on and so on. 3. The danger comes from the initial level (concentration) that is taken up by the seaweed. 4. Most radionuclides become deadly when ingested, particularly i-131 which concentrates in the thyroid.

And the officials continue to say the Japan nuclear disaster will not impact their plans for Lepreau.

My thoughts this morning.

Art

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Radioactive material found in B.C. seaweed and rainwater


Low levels of iodine-131 found in B.C. seaweed

Andrea Stockton, staff writer, The Weather Network

March 29, 2011 — Samples taken from rainwater and seaweed in B.C. show low levels of radiation from the damaged nuclear reactor in Japan.


Iodine-131 has a half life of eight days

A research team at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in B.C. say there has been a slight increase in radioactive material in samples of seaweed and rainwater on the west coast.

The rainwater was collected from the campus on Burnaby Mountain and the seaweed was taken near the SeaBus Terminal in North Vancouver. In a news release from SFU, scientists said the radiation from Japan's damaged nuclear reactor was carried by the jet stream and is mixing with sea water and accumulating in seaweed. The same material was detected on March 19, 20 and 25.

Although the team has detected an increase in iodine-131, which is sent into the atmosphere after a nuclear fission, health officials continue to stress that the levels are extremely low and are not a current threat to humans. Iodine-131 has a half life of eight days, so officials say it has a very rapid decay. It is usually used in the medical and pharmaceutical industries.

Since March 11, when the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and following tsunami devastated Japan, it has been a struggle to cool the Fukushima nuclear plant. Scientists predict that iodine-131 will be detected in B.C. for three to four weeks after the Fukushima reactor completely stops releasing radioactivity into the atmosphere.

With files from The Canadian Press and The Vancouver Sun
Image via Wikipedia
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