The purpose of this short diary is to bring to your attention a report recently released by the California Coastal Commission on the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Disaster and Radioactivity along the California Coast. The report refers to many published peer reviewed, scientific studies previously summarized here as part of an ongoing series dedicated to providing the best available science on the impacts of Fukushima on the health of the Pacific and residents of the west coast of North America. While the language in the Coastal Comissions Report is specific to CA it is very applicable to other residents of the Pacific coast. For those interested the document is a very useful primer and compendium of current scientific inquiry into the impact of Fukushima on ecosystem and public health. The report summary concludes:
The levels of Fukushima-derived radionuclides detected in air, drinking water, food, seawater and marine life in California are extremely low relative to the preexisting background from naturally occurring radionuclides and the persistent residues of 20th century nuclear weapons testing. The additional dose of radiation attributable to the Fukushima disaster is commensurately small, and the available evidence supports the idea that it will pose little additional risk to humans or marine life. However, it should be noted that the long-term effects of low-level radiation in the environment remain incompletely understood, and that this understanding would benefit from increased governmental support for the monitoring of radioactivity in seawater and marine biota and the study of health outcomes linked to radiation exposure.
As an example of the information contained in the report this is a useful figure (Figure 2) that compares the calculated doses experienced by California residents from Fukushima derived radionuclides (circled in red) from their presence in foods, air and water to radiation doses from a variety of other sources and behaviors. Doses are reported in microSv (0.000001 Sv), the y-axis uses a logarithmic scale to accommodate the wide range of values and numbers in parentheses along the x-axis cite references in the report:
Figure 2. Estimated radiation doses (in micro
-Sieverts) from a variety of radiation sources and scenarios. Doses relevant to exposure from Fukushima derived radionuclides in California are circled. Sources are indicated in parenthesis.