The world’s oceans contain many of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes, as well as the remnants of nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 60s. Starting in 2011, fallout, runoff, and continued leaks from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant added to this baseline and sparked fears of wide-ranging impacts to the marine ecosystem and human health. Despite concerns, there is no U.S. 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.
Whether you agree with predictions that levels of radiation along the Pacific Coast of North America will be too low to be of human health concern or to impact fisheries and marine life, we can all agree that radiation should be monitored, and we are asking for your help to make that happen.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has both the experience and facilities to monitor and track the spread of radionuclides released from Fukushima in the waters of the Pacific Coast of North America. The Institution and the Center for Marine and Environmental Radiation (CMER) are uniquely equipped to provide consistent, accurate assessment of both natural and manmade radiation in marine samples and is hosting this site to make this information readily available to everyone in a timely manner.
PROPOSE A LOCATION
How does it work?
Help us by mobilizing your community, school, or social networks to raise the money it takes to analyze 20 liters (about 5 gallons) of seawater for signs of radiation from Fukushima. We’ll send you everything you need to take a sample and return it to us.
January 18, 2014 at 5:52 pm ·
Great idea! I am happy to see an organization taking positive steps and learning from tragedy.
January 18, 2014 at 5:53 pm ·
Here in Washington many of the Tribal Fisheries have been test coastal water samples but these are done using 150cc samples up to a pint so I wonder why they need five gallons which would dramatically increase shipping costs?
January 18, 2014 at 8:37 pm ·
What’s so interesting in the video is to hear how government agencies are passing the buck on testing.
The interviewer asks why aren’t gov’t agencies doing the testing.
The interviewee answers that Ken Buesseler has gone to 5 different agencies.
But “budges are very tight” and
everyone seems to think it’s someone else’s problem ===>
> NOAA says we’re looking at debris, but we don’t look for radiation
> EPA says they cover chemicals but not radioactivity… that would be done by the DOE
> DOE says we look at radiation but only on land
> FDA says yes but this isn’t affecting our food supply
> National Science Foundation says we do basic research, and this is really an applied problem
Everyone has a justification for not looking for radiation.
http://wgbhnews.org/post/scientist-turns-public-test-pacific-oceans-radioactivity?utm_referrer=http%3A//m.wgbhnews.org/%3Futm_referrer%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fm.wgbhnews.org%252F%253Futm_referrer%253D%23mobile/20038
SO, the budget is too tight to test for radiation in fish, yet the latest budget deal gave $118 million dollars to a bankrupt uranium company!
Imagine how many tests on fish $118 could have bought.
January 19, 2014 at 1:36 am ·
24/7/365 Fukushima leaks 350 tons to 1000 toms of radioactive water into the Ocean. IT IS GETTING WORSE NOT BETTER as the reports seems to think in the video clip. The Pacific Ocean will die. In 2 yrs Japan runs out of space to store the radioactive water they make daily and will start to dump it into the Pacific and it will be dangerous for thousands of years and there is no way to stop it. Japan stupidly thinks they will HOST the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo CRAZY…this was supposed to be their SAVIOR because the 2020 GAMES was to introduce Japan as the GAMBLING MECCA of the planet…worth 16 Billion annually…NO NOT IMPOSSIBLE in 7 yrs that will be an incredible amount of accumulated radiation entering their drinking water and into the ocean with Tokyo only 130 miles South of Fukushima…CRAZY.
January 19, 2014 at 1:44 am ·
The lady in the report video seems to think the danger is past & happened 2 yrs ago, but daily upto 1000 tons of radioactive water enters the Ocean…& it will get worse as they run out of places to store the 550 tons of radioactive water they pump-up daily. The danger didn’t pass away 2 yrs ago it is getting worse and could be the worst nuclear explosion ever that could kill the planet the experts expect a plague of cancers in 2 to 5 years and the Pacific will die in 5 to 10 years more.