The New York Times dutifully reports today that Japan is Set to Declare Control over the reactor cores and spent fuel pools at the Fukushima Daiichi reservation. Despite the fact that we all now know the reactor cores are no longer in their vessels, or necessarily even in their containments. I guess they think that "control" means the corium's underground, thus well shielded until and unless it melts its way to the water table.
Still, in a nation where officials glibly claim that a smile provides perfect protection against the physical harm radiation does to biological organisms, it might work. At least until gnarly chemotherapy and wholesale surgeries make it impossible to smile in between moans of pain and puking fits.
But perhaps a little good news from the land of the rising sun is well-timed for Christmas, as some very disturbing news comes in from the west coast of North America.
Washington State's Penninsula Daily News reports that the first debris from the Japanese earthquake/tsunami has begun to wash up along the coast of Washington and Vancouver.
An estimated 100 million tons of debris that washed out to sea when the tsunami struck will continue to wash up along beaches from Alaska to California over the next couple of years, after making its way across the Pacific Ocean on currents. Because the volume of debris is so large, ports and shipping lanes could be clogged. But that's not the worst of the flotsam headed our way…
The floats are included in masses of black blobs supporting huge rafts of debris that include fishing boats, houses and possibly human bodies, Ebbesmeyer said.
Many of those bodies and parts of bodies will likely begin washing up in about a year, some simply as feet in athletic shoes, similar to those found in Puget Sound over the last decade, he said.
Ebbesmeyer has done extensive research on those feet, and said that many more may be found in coming years.
Athletic shoes make the perfect floats to preserve parts of bodies, Ebbesmeyer said, and there are still thousands of people missing from tsunami-stricken areas of Japan.
Shoes with remains or other possibly human remains found on beaches should be reported to the appropriate authorities, either police, sheriff’s deputies or park rangers, he said.
Much of the debris - including human remains - will be contaminated with radioactive isotopes from the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, so officials are warning people not to handle things that wash up.
I'm thinking those sunset strolls along the beach over on the left coast might not be quite so romantic anymore...