April 9, 2012 - Palos Verdes Patch -
Are Fish Affected by Radioactive Kelp Off Our Coast? - Fish along Southern California's coast may have been affected by Fukushima's radioactivity that fell on California in the days after Japan's 2011 nuclear disaster, as small levels of radioactive isotopes accumulated in local seaweed, researchers have reported. The study poses the possibility that small amounts of Fukushima radioactivity has entered the California coast's food web, but the California State University Long Beach marine sciences professor who co-wrote a new study said he does not know if there is a measurable detrimental effect. The radioactive forms of cesium and iodine ``get dispersed over a variety of organisms'' including fish, said Cal State Long Beach marine biology professor Steven L. Manley. ``I would assume it's there'' in the biomass of plants and animals off California's coast. ``It's not a good thing, but whether it actually has a measurable detrimental effect is beyond my expertise,'' he said in a news statement issued by the Long Beach State public affairs office. The seaweed off Southern California was contaminated with short-lived radioisotopes a month after Japan’s Fukushima accident, based on tests of giant kelp from the ocean off Orange County and other locations. Detected was radioactive iodine at peak concentrations 250-fold higher than levels found in West Coast kelp before the nuclear accident, the Environmental Health News reported.
April 9, 2012 - Current TV - EVACUATING: Dr. Helen Caldicott - What We Learned From Fukushima - If Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 collapses I am evacuating my family from Boston. Few people know that the Pacific Northwest got whacked hard by fallout from the Fukushima disaster with radiation rates hundreds of thousands of times higher than normal background radiation. The damage from this is not something that the corporate media or the government is talking about. It mysteriously disappeared from the radar almost immediately. Dr. Caldicott referred to this as a process of "cover-up and psychic numbing." Looks like it may be working. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission just approved two new nuclear power plants this week (4/2/12) in South Carolina in addition to the two approved earlier this year in Georgia. Dr. Caldicott talks about the dangers and hidden costs of nuclear power then tells the awful truth in minute detail about the actual scale of the Fukushima disaster and compares it to the nuclear disasters of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Recent studies estimated that a million people have died so far from Chernobyl. Dr. Helen Caldicott is a physician, Nobel Peace Prize winner, noted author, anti-nuclear power advocate and has founded numerous national and international groups which oppose nuclear power & weapons, including Physicians for Social Responsibility.