![]() ![]() The plume will then flow down the coast of North America and circle back toward Hawaii, models predict.īut Buesseler thinks even low levels of contamination merit monitoring, both for human health information and for the wealth of data about Pacific Ocean currents such monitoring could provide. "These levels are clearly not a human or biological threat in Canada," Smith said.įukushima’s radiation reached coastal Canada first because of the powerful Kuroshio Current, which flows from Japan across the Pacific. But oceanographers and radiation experts say the radiation levels will be too low to threaten human health. The impending arrival of radioactive contaminants from Fukushima has raised concerns among coastal residents in the United States and Canada. "It's still a little too early to know which one is correct," Smith said. Both peaks are well below the highest level recorded in the Baltic Sea after Chernobyl, which was 1,000 Becquerels per cubic meter. However, the models differ in their predictions of the peak concentration of cesium - from a low of 2 to a maximum of 27 Becquerels per cubic meter. These models suggest that radionuclides from Fukushima will begin to arrive on the West Coast in early 2014 and peak in 2016. The new monitoring data does not show which of two competing models best predicts the future concentration of Fukushima radiation along the U.S. That's similar to background levels in the ocean from nuclear weapons testing, suggesting the Fukushima plume has not reached the U.S. beaches were 1.3 to 1.7 Becquerels per cubic meter, Buesseler said. For comparison, uncontaminated seawater contains only a few Becquerels per cubic meter of cesium.Ĭesium-137 levels at U.S. safety limit for cesium levels in drinking water is about 28 Becquerels, the number of radioactive decay events per second, per gallon (or 7,400 Becquerels per cubic meter). They are awaiting results from a February 2014 sampling trip. All of the cesium-134 was concentrated in the upper 325 feet (100 m) of the ocean, he said. By June 2013, the concentration reached 0.9 Becquerels per cubic meter, Smith said. Smith and his colleagues tracked rising levels of cesium-134 at several ocean monitoring stations west of Vancouver in the North Pacific beginning in 2011. Cesium-137, on the other hand, is also present from nuclear weapons tests and discharge from nuclear power plants. "The only cesium-134 in the North Pacific is there from Fukushima," he said. Cesium-134, with a half-life of only two years, is an unequivocal marker of Fukushima ocean contamination, Smith said. Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years and remains in the environment for decades. The initial nuclear accident from the Fukushima reactors released several radioactive isotopes, such as iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137. The meltdown was triggered by the massive tsunami that followed the quake. Three nuclear reactors at the power plant melted down after the March 11, 2011, Tohoku earthquake. The scientists are tracking a radioactive plume from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. In this case, cesium-137 has more neutrons than cesium-134.) (Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. ![]() "We have results from eight locations, and they all have cesium-137, but no cesium-134 yet," Buesseler said. beaches indicate that Fukushima radioactivity has not yet reached Washington, California or Hawaii, said Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Mass. The detected concentrations are much lower than the Canadian safety limit for cesium levels in drinking water, said John Smith, a research scientist at Canada's Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Two radioactive cesium isotopes, cesium-134 and cesium-137, have been detected offshore of Vancouver, British Columbia, researchers said at a news conference. Radiation from Japan's leaking Fukushima nuclear power plant has reached waters offshore Canada, researchers said today at the annual American Geophysical Union's Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu. ![]()
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