Fukushima Radiation Reaches US West Coast, Cesium-134 Found in Canadian Salmon

Cesium-134, the fingerprint of seaborne radiation from the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan, has been detected on the West Coast of the United States for the first time, as well as in Canadian salmon.


Read more: Seawater samples from both Tillamook Bay and Gold Beach in Oregon were found to contain trace amounts of Cesium-134, according to reports from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The institution’s chemical oceanographer, Ken Buesseler, has been tracking the radiation plume in a crowdfunded effort “to monitor the ongoing spread of radiation across the Pacific and its evolving impacts on the ocean,” the project’s website states.

“Despite concerns, there is no US government agency monitoring the spread of low levels of radiation from Fukushima along the West Coast and around the Hawaiian Islands—even though levels are expected to rise over coming years,” the website details. In both the US and Canada, researchers have claimed that levels are low enough that Cesium-124 is not a threat to humans or the environment, the Statesman Journal reported.
  [sputniknews.com]
8/12/16
-
Related:

• Fukushima debris island the size of Texas floating to the US.