Radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster is growing on land, in food, in seawater, politically, and economically. The news is not good.
In a country that relies on seafood for lifestyle, for jobs, for economy, for food, the following updates are sobering:
From NPR:
http://www.npr.org/...
The safety issues for the workers are now well-documented. The Japanese government is chastising TEPCO.
...The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, or NISA, said TEPCO was aware there was high radiation in the air at one of the plant's six units several days before the accident in which the workers were injured. And the two workers hurt were wearing boots that only came up to their ankles — hardly high enough to protect their legs, agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said...
Adding, significantly:
...The situation at the stricken plant remains unpredictable, government spokesman Yukio Edano said, adding that it would be "a long time" until the crisis is over.
"We seem to be keeping the situation from turning worse," he said. "But we still cannot be optimistic."...
Plenty of reasons for concern here, despite the official reassurance, not reassuringly, interspersed with the release of new information.
...Just outside a reactor at the coastal nuclear plant, radioactivity in seawater tested some 1,250 times higher than normal, Nishiyama said. He said the area is not a source of seafood and the contamination posed no immediate threat to human health.
However, tests conducted 18 miles offshore found radioactive iodine-131 at levels nearing the regulatory limit set by the Japanese government, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. The tests also detected another radioactive substance, cesium-137, at lower levels.
IAEA experts said the ocean will quickly dilute the worst contamination. Radioactive iodine breaks down within weeks but cesium could foul the marine environment for decades...
The fact that cesium has been flowing into the coastal ocean waters at extremely high levels and will persist in the ocean environment for decades does not bode well for the Japanese people, the ocean, the seafood industry, or people on the planet who rely on fish for their food. As an Alaskan, with a strong background in aquatic ecology, and living in a community with a fishing resource lifestyle, not unlike those of the people of Japan, these latest figures are particularly disturbing to me.
When official "experts" of the IAEA say, the ocean will quickly dilute the worst contamination, I reply "It's the ecology, stupid." Radioactive isotopes concentrate in the food chain.
From a National Academy of Sciences report done in the 50's (and from my previous diary on "Radiation Impacts on Oceans and Fisheries"):
http://books.google.com/...
...Cesium 137 and strontium 89 and 90 remain in solution while ruthenium 106, cerium 144, zirconium 95, yttruim 90 and 90 and niobium 95 are largely in the solid phase...
The long-lived and dangerous isotope, strontium 90, has a relatively high transfer percentage and long equilibrium or "residence" time; the same would be expected for cesium 137, which is alkali and should behave somewhat like potassium or rubidium...
Okay, so maybe no immediate threat to human health, but how about long-term threat to fisheries, the lifestyle and economy of Japan, and to the food chain and human health.
Radioactive cesium, as they say, lasts for decades.
On land (again from the NPR source above):
...Radiation has been...making its way into milk, seawater and 11 kinds of vegetables, including broccoli, cauliflower and turnips.
Tap water in several areas of Japan, including Tokyo, has shown higher-than-normal levels of radiation. In the capital, readings were 1.2 times higher than the government safety limit for infants, who are particularly vulnerable to radioactive iodine...
We have little control over earthquakes and tsunamis. We have more control over the energy we use, and also, the energy systems we subsidize. We, as people of the earth, must take back control of the systems of the planet.
Without a sound, sustainable ecology, there is no such thing as a sound, sustainable world economy. There is no such thing as clean air, clean water, healthy food.
Taxpayers subsidize nuclear plants up front. Taxpayers subsidize the clean-up costs.
http://www.time.com/...
Many Japanese people are bearing the loss of their homes (evacuation) and the loss of their lifestyle, jobs, and economy (food contamination on land and in the ocean).
We can choose not to subsidize bad choices.